Toward the development of a stand-alone application for the assessment of sediment connectivity

The role of sediment connectivity in controlling sediment fluxes, in particular between sediment sources and downstream areas, is a key issue in the study of sediment transfer processes. In mountain catchments, in which the degree of hillslope-channel coupling and decoupling is controlled by the rugged morphology and the distribution of sediment sources, the assessment of connectivity patterns is especially useful for giving watershed management priorities. In this work, the authors present the ongoing development and the first-stage testing phase of a free, open source and stand-alone application for the computation of the Index of Connectivity (IC), as expressed in Cavalli et al. (2013). The tool is intended to have a wide variety of users, both from the scientific community and from the authorities involved in the environmental planning. Due to its open source nature, the tool can be modified and/or integrated according to the users requirements. Being also a stand-alone, easy-to-use application, the tool can help management authorities in the quantitative estimation of sediment connectivity in the framework of hazard and risk assessment. First results of the testing phase are encouraging since the modelled connectivity appears suitable to detect the potential for the sediment to reach specific targets areas such as the main channel network.