Innovative Approaches for Modeling and Monitoring of Gully Erosion

A special issue of Earth (ISSN 2673-4834).

Deadline for manuscript submissions: closed (31 December 2021) | Viewed by 6343

Special Issue Editors


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Guest Editor
Department of Earth and Marine Sciences, University of Palermo, Via Archirafi 22, 90123 Palermo, Italy
Interests: gully erosion; stochastic approach to landslide susceptibility modelling; GIS; machine learning to model soil erosion
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Guest Editor
Department of Biological and Agricultural Engineering, Kansas State University, 1016 Seaton Hall, Manhattan, KS 66506, USA
Interests: soil erosion; ephemeral gully erosion; watershed modeling; climate change impacts; hydrology
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Guest Editor
Research Institute for Sustainable Territorial Development, University of Extremadura, 10071 Cáceres, Spain
Interests: geomorphology; photogrammetry; UAV; LIDAR; digital terrain analysis; spatial modelling
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Special Issue Information

Dear colleagues,

Gully erosion is a process of removal of topsoil along concentrated overland flow channels by surface water runoff; it causes land degradation in many regions and under different environmental conditions. In recent years, new technologies have emerged allowing to obtain high-precision measures of gully features and soil losses. Moreover, advanced computer tools were developed and applied to modeling of gully occurrence at different scales. In this Special Issue, we would like to invite gully erosion studies that are carried out at a range of hillslope to watershed scales and employ innovative and cutting-edge approaches to measure, monitor, and model gully initiation, channel development, and sediment production. This issue will cover research using recent advancements in capturing and processing of tri-dimensional point clouds which allow precise reconstruction of gully erosion landforms and monitoring of gully expansion. Furthermore, studies employing novel techniques or improvements of existing computer modeling approaches for assessment of gully occurrence, headcut location, and soil losses are particularly welcome.

Prof. Dr. Christian Conoscenti
Prof. Dr. Aleksey Sheshukov
Prof. Dr. Álvaro Gómez-Gutiérrez
Guest Editors

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Keywords

  • gully erosion
  • soil loss
  • monitoring
  • point clouds
  • 3D photo-reconstruction
  • statistical modeling
  • machine learning
  • data mining

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Published Papers (2 papers)

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Research

21 pages, 7582 KiB  
Article
How Can the Morphometric Characteristics and Failure Conditions of a Historic Gully Caused by Intense Rainfall Be Reconstructed?
by Claire Rault, Yannick Thiery, Bertrand Aunay, Bastien Colas, Kahina Reboul and Thomas J. B. Dewez
Earth 2022, 3(1), 324-344; https://doi.org/10.3390/earth3010020 - 19 Feb 2022
Cited by 1 | Viewed by 2478
Abstract
In January 1980, during exceptional cyclonic rainfall, an atypical landslide, called déboulé, rapidly generated the permanent 700 m-long gully of the Ravine de l’Eglise on an inhabited plateau in Reunion Island (Indian Ocean). Retrieving the initial conditions that led to this historical [...] Read more.
In January 1980, during exceptional cyclonic rainfall, an atypical landslide, called déboulé, rapidly generated the permanent 700 m-long gully of the Ravine de l’Eglise on an inhabited plateau in Reunion Island (Indian Ocean). Retrieving the initial conditions that led to this historical process is both challenging and necessary for understanding the mechanism of gully incision and providing pointers for improving risk mitigation in relation to this phenomenon. In this study, we reconstruct the pre- and post-failure topographies using SFM (structure from motion) applied on archive aerial photographs. Based on the comparison of these digital elevation models, we estimate the volume of material eroded to be ca. 0.63 Mm3. Groundwater level increase, part of the triggering mechanism, is hindcast in the catchment of the gully using a lumped hydrological model. This model shows that in only a fortnight the groundwater level probably rose by 36 m, which could have caused a progressive increase in pore pressure and triggered formation of the gully by retrogressive landslides. We test this hypothesis by considering the pre-failure topography and the hindcast groundwater level in a deterministic model based on limit equilibrium equations to explore ground stability. The evolution of ground stability with a rise in the water table shows that the gully may have extended in a headward direction by retrogressive landslides. This is the first quantitative reconstruction of an exceptional historical event affecting the territory of Reunion Island. The methods used to investigate the Ravine de L’Eglise incision thus offer new complementary insights and challenges for understanding the mechanism and the temporality of gully formation. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Innovative Approaches for Modeling and Monitoring of Gully Erosion)
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17 pages, 4569 KiB  
Article
The Theoretical Approach to the Modelling of Gully Erosion in Cohesive Soil
by Aleksey Sidorchuk
Earth 2022, 3(1), 228-244; https://doi.org/10.3390/earth3010015 - 9 Feb 2022
Viewed by 2672
Abstract
The stochastic gully erosion model (STOGEM) is based on a combination of deterministic mechanics and a stochastic description of the erosion control factors. The main proposition in the model is that the depth of the active surface layer of eroded cohesive soil is [...] Read more.
The stochastic gully erosion model (STOGEM) is based on a combination of deterministic mechanics and a stochastic description of the erosion control factors. The main proposition in the model is that the depth of the active surface layer of eroded cohesive soil is equal to one particle diameter, and the deposition of eroded particles is negligible. The erosion rate at the gully bed is calculated directly from the equation of the balance between driving and resistance forces acting on soil particles in flowing water using the probability density functions of stochastic variables: flow velocity, soil aggregate size and cohesion. Probability density functions of cohesion in the model vary through time and space during the erosion event due to the changes in soil composition—armoring and loosening. This theory is still far from achieving practical application, but opens up a new way for better understanding the experimental results of gully erosion and shows the direction for future investigations. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Innovative Approaches for Modeling and Monitoring of Gully Erosion)
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