Triggering upstream channel incision in the fluvial systems of the trunk valley of Wadi Watir drainage basin, South Sinai Peninsula, Egypt

Abstract

Dredging the alluvial fans for repaving the international road located in the bottom of the Wadi Watir valley produced vertical cliff faces of different heights, and at different locations of the fans. The heights of the cliff faces resulted in considerable elevation differences between the surface of the dredged alluvial fans and the local base level provided by the Watir trunk valley. The principal geomorphic response to this anthropogenic intervention is triggering upstream channel incision waves at different intensities in the fluvial systems of the downstream reaches of the Watir drainage basin. The channel incision processes resulted in subsequent geomorphic adjustment scenarios that vary from widening the active channels on the surface of the dredged fans, triggering rockfalls from the adjacent hillslopes, and transporting coarse alluvial deposits from the main sediment sources of the fluvial systems, and eventually re-depositing them as sheetform gravel, channelform gravel, and new fan lobes. The major outcome of the various geomorphic adjustment processes was changing the role of the alluvial fans within the fluvial systems from buffer zones where fan aggradation was dominant into dynamic coupled zones. Being coupled zones, the dredged alluvial fans allowed high potential of mass transmission from the feeder catchment areas into the Watir trunk valley. Under such conditions, it could be stipulated that considerable changes in the morphology of landscapes are highly anticipated in response to flash flood events that intermittently occur in the Watir drainage basin.