General workplan (work packages)

This WP aims to analyse and quantify the soil erosion rate at regional scale using the Upper Llobregat River basin as study and test area. Multiple geomatic techniques are applied to determine historic sediment yield and results are compared with recent observation of siltation at a selected water reservoir. All these data will be used to calibrate, assess and validate the existing and newly developed regional soil erosion model.

This WP deals with the quantitative analysis of soil erosion and sediment yield at first-order catchment scale. To account for the influence of the soil type, the investigation mainly focusses on two basins. One site is the Rebaixader catchment (Upper Noguera Ribagorçana River basin, South Central Pyrenees); which is a torrential basin with a coarse-grained soil. The site is monitored since 2009 for the research on formation and propagation of torrential flows and that is regarded as a natural laboratory. The other (new) study basin is a badland catchment close to Saldes (Upper Llobregat River basin, in the Pre-Pyrenees) in which the soil is a silty-clay regolith resulting from weathering of Garumnian shales.

This WP aims to analyze and quantify the soil erosion rate at talus slope scale, which approximately refer to areas covering 1 to 100 m². The WP includes field investigation plots at three sites (Saldes, Rebaixader and Cercs), at the existing experimental embankment (at UPC_Agrópolis) and the laboratory tests. In all cases, the instrumentation placed will be used to monitor rainfall (energy), soil moisture, runoff and the eroded material. In addition, meteorological variables will be measured (in situ) or mimicked (in laboratory). All these data will be used to calibrate, assess and validate the existing and newly developed soil erosion models at slope scale (input from WP4).

WP4 contains the numerical activities to be carried out for the development of a multiscale integrated model for slope erosion. The final model is conceived as a tool immersed in a spatially reference database and driven by heuristic rules allowing for different analyses according to the scale of analysis: deterministic at slope scale, physically-based stochastic at regional scale and mixed upscaled deterministic/downscaled stochastic at catchment scale. The final model is validated by comparison with field and laboratory data obtained at different scale in WP1, WP2 and WP3.

This work package will be active throughout the project and will ensure on one side the efficient coordination of all the participating persons/institutions. On the other side, special attention will be driven to the dissemination actions and the knowledge transfer to society. Another important goal of this WP is the transference of the results to the scientific community and the EPOs involved. This WP will strongly benefit from the two experts in scientific communications.