Soil erosion and badlands areas

The task of this project consists mainly in evaluating soil erosion in a badlands sample area of central Italy. The work is developed on a series of plots having the same shape and surface but different steepness, exposure and vegetation cover. The sediment produced is channelled towards a flowmeter. A further control of the detached material along the slope is done using the WEPP (Water Erosion Prediction Project) model. A multi-temporal geomorphologic analysis helps to distinguish the different areas in which the badlands evolution has been important in the past. By means of this work it is possible to characterize the landscape evolution as a function of the parameters that influence the soil loss.