@ERAD 2022

Soil erosion by water is one of the most widespread forms of soil degradation in Europe responsible for relevant agricultural productivity losses. Under climate change, soil erosion is expected to increase for the most part because of a rising of the frequency of extreme, localised events. In critical hydrological phenomena, such as intense surface runoff, flooding, and soil erosion, the spatiotemporal extent significantly affects the impact and the evolution of the phenomena, especially during extreme events. Therefore, an approach directed to refine the knowledge of these dynamics is recommended.

Here, we present the SED-RUN project, focusing on quantifying extreme rainfall effects on soil erosion by means of ground-based weather-radar observations and hydrological modelling at regional scale (namely in Tuscany, central Italy). Using an approach based on a statistical analysis and modelling, the project aims to: 1) Quantifying on historical data the spatiotemporal distribution of extreme rainfalls / runoff and soil erosion over the last decade, 2) Building a platform to model runoff and soil erosion in extreme events, 3) Simulating in real-time runoff and soil erosion integrating the current regional-warning-system for extreme weather events.

Rainfall data will be provided by the national and regional institutions such as LaMMA Consortium, disposing of ground-radar data from year 2015 at 1-km spatial and 15-mins time resolutions, and the “Italian Civil Protection”, whose radar dataset of the national network (DPCN) covers the 2010–2020 period, with a spatial resolution of 1 km in a 10-mins time-step.