Monitoring Sediment Transport During Floods in Tuscany

Abstract

This work describes the monitoring activity of flow and sediment discharges carried out in four river stations on four different rivers in Tuscany: Arno, Serchio, Magra and Versilia characterized by a large difference in the drainage areas ranging from about 100 km² to about 4,100 km². From December 2006 to November 2012, 43 floods events were monitored and measured in these stations, with the aim of deriving flow-sediment rating curves. Field measurements include more than 150 samples of bed load and suspended load and flow discharges up to about 700 m³/s. Laboratory analyses of collected samples show that bed load was mostly composed by gravel in the case of the Versilia and Magra rivers, while Arno and Serchio showed a dominant sand transport. The measured data constitute a precious and unique dataset at the regional scale for calibrating sediment budget model and morphodynamic model, and for predicting the sand and gravel volume fractions annually conveyed to the sea.