Erosion Rate of the Aliano Biancana Badlands Based on a 3D Multi-Temporal High-Resolution Survey and Implications for Wind-Driven Rain

Antonella Marsico, Vincenzo De Santis and Domenico Capolongo
Additional contact information
Antonella Marsico: Dipartimento di Scienze della Terra e Geoambientali, Università degli Studi di Bari “Aldo Moro“, via E. Orabona, 70125 Bari, Italy
Vincenzo De Santis: Dipartimento di Scienze della Terra e Geoambientali, Università degli Studi di Bari “Aldo Moro“, via E. Orabona, 70125 Bari, Italy
Domenico Capolongo: Dipartimento di Scienze della Terra e Geoambientali, Università degli Studi di Bari “Aldo Moro“, via E. Orabona, 70125 Bari, Italy

Land, 2021, vol. 10, issue 8, 1-17

Abstract: Biancana badlands are peculiar landforms in the Basilicata region of Italy resulting from the local combination of geological, geomorphological, and climatic settings. The evolution of badlands mainly depends on slope erosion, which is controlled by the angle, exposure, and vegetation of the slope and its interactions with insolation, rain, and wind. Multi-temporal, detailed, high-resolution surveys have led researchers to assess changes in slopes to investigate the spatial distributions of erosion and deposition and the influence of wind-driven rain (WDR). A comparison between two terrestrial laser scanner (TLS) point clouds surveyed during 2006 and 2016 fieldwork showed that the study area suffers from intense erosion that is not spatially uniform on all sides of biancane. By combining slope and exposure data and the cloud of difference (CoD), derived from a 3D model, we showed that all the steepest southern sides of biancane suffered the most intense erosion. Because splash and sheet erosion triggers sediment displacement, the analysis was also focused on the intensity and direction of WDR. We performed a real field experiment analysing erosion rates over 10 years in relation to daily and hourly wind data (direction and speed), and we found that frequent winds of moderate force, combined with moderate to heavy rainfall, contributed to the observed increase in soil erosion when combined with the insolation effect. Our results show how all the considered factors interact in a complex pattern to control the spatial distribution of erosion.

Keywords: biancane; badlands; 3D models; multitemporal comparison; erosion; wind-driven rain (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: Q15 Q2 Q24 Q28 Q5 R14 R52 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2021
References: View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/2073-445X/10/8/828/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/2073-445X/10/8/828/ (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:gam:jlands:v:10:y:2021:i:8:p:828-:d:610257

Access Statistics for this article

Land is currently edited by Ms. Carol Ma

More articles in Land from MDPI
Bibliographic data for series maintained by MDPI Indexing Manager ().