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| Titel |
Patterns and Pathways of Evolving Catchment Response in NE Italy on a Millennium Scale |
| VerfasserIn |
L. P. H. Van Beek, H. Feiken |
| Konferenz |
EGU General Assembly 2015
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| Medientyp |
Artikel
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| Sprache |
Englisch
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| Digitales Dokument |
PDF |
| Erschienen |
In: GRA - Volume 17 (2015) |
| Datensatznummer |
250110926
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| Publikation (Nr.) |
 EGU/EGU2015-10971.pdf |
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| Zusammenfassung |
| The meso-scale landscape dynamics model, CALEROS, has been developed to simulate the interactions between climate, soil production and erosion, vegetation and land use on geomorphological to human time scales. Starting from an initial landscape consisting of a DTM, soil distribution and underlying lithology, the landscape is free to develop in response to the imposed climate variability and seismicity. In addition to changes in soil distribution and bedrock lowering, this includes the establishment of vegetation as conditioned by a selection of plant functional types and, optionally, population and land use dynamics as conditioned by land use scenarios specifying technological and dietary constraints for different periods. As such CALEROS is well-suited to investigate the relative impacts of climate, land cover and human activities on the hydrological catchment response and the associated sediment fluxes due to soil erosion and mass movements.
Here we use CALEROS to investigate the redistribution of water and sediment across a medium-sized catchment in NE Italy. Starting from the same initial conditions, the catchment is subjected respectively to conditions corresponding to the present-day sub-alpine and montane climates of NE Italy, with and without the introduction of agriculture around 5000 BC. For these two catchments, we establish patterns of co-evolution in soil properties and vegetation under pristine and anthropogenically impacted conditions on a millennium-scale.
Using summary statistics to describe the emergent properties, we then delineate areas of uniform morphology and describe the various pathways of development. This information allows us to identify elements of consistent hydrological response and the associated transfer of material across different scales. It also provides essential information on feedbacks and the resulting convergence or divergence in landscape development under the impact of climatic events or human intervention. Although the results are evidently conditioned by the initial settings and by the interactions included in the model, they can help us to understand the organization of medium-sized catchments and their resilience in light of ongoing changes. |
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