Objective
To assess the risk of disruption to the water cycle and soil
erosion process caused by changes in rural land use in the
Mediterranean coastal hinterland, and formulate recommendations
on its future management.
The work consists at the examination of the components of the
water quantity and quality balance equation, especially the
effect of plant cover, with the aid of specific field experiments
in five representative experimental catchments along the French
and Spanish Mediterranean seaboard. The experimental approach
includes monitoring of ground rainfall under various types of
tree cover (chestnut, cork oak, scrub, Norway pine), isotope
monitoring of soil moisture and monitoring of biogeochemical
cycles, water availability and sediment yields in cleared and
natural forest catchment, and, finally, hydrological and erosion
monitoring in a semi-arid area.
The project uses an historical approach to locate the current
status of the processes involved (gully erosion,
hydroclimatology) within the more general context of their
historical development, and a refined analysis of these
contemporary processes to assess the effect of plant cover (or
absence thereof) on catchment hydrology.
The historical approach (last glaciation and (last century)
includes a time-history of evolution of gully areas, sediments
datation and examination of socio-economic factors to identify
their interactions on present erosion trends, and an analysis of
long rainfall series records (more than 100 years), to situate
present climatic trend. The analysis of contempory processes is
more detailed with spatial comparisons and fine modelling
(SHETRAN-UK, TOPMODEL, ETC lumped models) in terms of inventories
and balances. It includes comparative analysis of recent
hydroclimatology, space-time analysis of annual hydrological and
hydrochemical balances and influence of plant cover, material
balance for the whole catchment, with emphasis on impact of
vegetation, plant cover water balance (interception, evaporation
and transpiration) and fine analysis (time step of a few minutes)
and modelling of outflow/entrainment generation processes
Satellite imaging technology will be finally used to characterize
the experimental catchments, chiefly through topographic index
values and plant cover, and extrapolate results from the
experimental catchments studied to other areas.
Fields of science
Call for proposal
Data not availableFunding Scheme
CSC - Cost-sharing contractsCoordinator
13612 Aix-en-Provence
France