Assessing soil erosion hazard in a key badland area of Central Italy

Abstract

In this work, an integrated methodology was applied to assess the water erosion hazard in Upper Orcia Valley, an area of Southern Tuscany (Italy), greatly affected by severe denudation processes, that caused the development of widespread badlands. Prediction of areas prone to calanchi badland development was carried out by applying a susceptibility assessment method based on conditional statistical analysis, preceded by a bivariate statistical analysis aimed at selecting the most influential causal factors of erosion. Water erosion rates at badland sites were estimated by means of an empirical statistical method, implemented to evaluate the erosion intensity (Tu denudation index) and based on some geomorphic parameters as independent variables. This methodology allows associating the denudation intensity to the spatial prediction. The validation procedure, based on a random partition of calanchi badland areas, confirmed the efficiency of the spatial zonation of the erosion hazard values. Moreover, the comparison of the estimated erosion rates with the results of decadal investigations on denudation processes affecting the study area, performed by different monitoring methods, showed the effectiveness of the estimation model. These results allowed concluding that the proposed procedure represents a useful tool to be applicable for soil protection strategy planning in land management of Mediterranean areas characterized by similar morphoclimatic features, even when direct erosion rate measures are not available.