The potential of permanent gullies in Europe as geomorphosites

Geotourism is a useful way to educate societies in the field of geomorphology and natural hazards. Geosites, including geomorphosites, represent the basis for the development of this type of tourism. This study describes twelve representative gully regions within nine European countries. The characteristics of 42 permanent gullies, gully systems and badland landscapes are presented and a geotouristic assessment of these gullies was made, based on scientific, educational, functional and touristic indicators. This assessment demonstrates a large difference between the selected gully sites, particularly with regard to functional and tourist values. The geotouristic potential of gullies is the highest in Italy and Spain and the lowest in Romania and Latvia. In some countries, permanent gullies are not regarded as geotouristic attractions at all, while in others they constitute a significant element of their tourism development strategy. Based on the analysis of scientific values of the gully sites, educational lessons to be learned were identified that are mainly related to i) gullies as a geological window, ii) present-day geomorphological processes, and iii) stages of historical gully erosion reflecting past human-environment interactions. These must be part of a broader strategy for the development of geotourism in gully regions. Gullies are potential geosites within existing or planned geoparks. Values of gullies for other forms of tourism (active, cultural, nature), should be also emphasized

Current and historical gully erosion and accompanying muddy floods in Slovakia

Comparison of commonly acting gullying and muddy floods at present (in the post-collectivization period) and in the past (mostly in the period of the 16th to 19th centuries) has showed considerable disparities; they are conditioned by the character of land use and climate changes, mostly in the case of their synchronous occurrence what has profoundly multiplied their geomorphic response.In the case when extreme events occur in the area with permanent, historical gullies, the current common operation of gully erosion and muddy floods can show similar features with their acting in the past.In such cases the material of muddy floods is coming not only from fresh ephemeral gullies but also from old permanent gullies that were deepened during these events.It was confirmed during extreme events that happened in cadastral areas of two villages in western Slovakia in 2009 that were not comparable with geomorphic effects of other events within the last period

New morphostructural subdivision of the Western Carpathians : an approach integrating geodynamics into targeted morphometric analysis.

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The Potential of Permanent Gullies in Europe as Geomorphosites

Geotourism is a useful way to educate societies in the field of geomorphology and related natural hazards. Geosites, including geomorphosites, represent the basis for the development of this type of tourism. This study describes 12 representative gully regions within nine European countries. The characteristics of 42 permanent gullies, gully systems, and badland landscapes are presented. Based on scientific values of the sites, educational lessons to be learned were identified that are mainly related to (i) gullies as a geological window, (ii) present-day geomorphological processes and (iii) stages of historical gully erosion reflecting past human–environment interactions. To evaluate possible education activities, a geotouristic assessment of the studied gullies and badlands was made, based on scientific, educational, functional and touristic indicators. This assessment demonstrates a large difference between the selected gully and badland sites, particularly with regard to functional and tourist values. The geotouristic potential of gullies (badlands) is the highest in Italy and Spain and the lowest in Romania and Latvia. In some countries, permanent gullies are not regarded as geotouristic attractions at all, while in others, they constitute a significant element of their tourism development strategy. In our opinion, all activities must be part of a broader strategy for the development of geotourism in gully and badland regions, for example, gullies may be included as geosites within existing or planned geoparks

Measuring, modelling and managing gully erosion at large scales: A state of the art

Soil erosion is generally recognized as the dominant process of land degradation. The formation and expansion of gullies is often a highly significant process of soil erosion. However, our ability to assess and simulate gully erosion and its impacts remains very limited. This is especially so at regional to continental scales. As a result, gullying is often overlooked in policies and land and catchment management strategies. Nevertheless, significant progress has been made over the past decades. Based on a review of >590 scientific articles and policy documents, we provide a state-of-the-art on our ability to monitor, model and manage gully erosion at regional to continental scales. In this review we discuss the relevance and need of assessing gully erosion at regional to continental scales (Section 1); current methods to monitor gully erosion as well as pitfalls and opportunities to apply them at larger scales (section 2); field-based gully erosion research conducted in Europe and European Russia (section 3); model approaches to simulate gully erosion and its contribution to catchment sediment yields at large scales (section 4); data products that can be used for such simulations (section 5); and currently existing policy tools and needs to address the problem of gully erosion (section 6). Section 7 formulates a series of recommendations for further research and policy development, based on this review. While several of these sections have a strong focus on Europe, most of our findings and recommendations are of global significance