Notes on Morphological Characters of Ephemeral Streams in Apulia Region, South Italy

Abstract

This work introduces an investigation on the peculiarity of morphological characteristics of the ephemeral streams of the central part of Apulia, in south-east of Italy. In particular, the analysis is focused on their morphological features, allowing to improve the knowledge about their origin and genesis. Moreover, a comparison between the ephemeral streams of the Murgia area and those of north Salento is proposed. These two groups of ephemeral stream share interesting similarities in term of stream length, catchment area, and climatic condition, but are located in different geological situations. The earlier group crosses the cretaceous limestone bedrock, outcropping in Murgia upland, the latter crosses quaternary deposits of Brindisi plateau. It is envisaged that ephemeral streams of Murgia even if located in quite geologically ancient rocks show morphological characteristics typical of a stream evolution at a really earlier stage differently from those of north Salento located in quaternary deposits. This is apparently unmotivated, since it should be the opposite. Therefore a likely reason for this may be a different genesis of ephemeral streams of Murgia.