Human induced soil erosion and gully system development in the Late Holocene and future perspectives on landscape evolution: The Myjava Hill Land, Slovakia

In humid climate zones, like Central Europe, past soil erosion and gullying are strongly connected with agricultural expansion, and extreme soil erosion events often play an important role in land abandonment. This paper provides a case study to demonstrate the interaction between land use, soil erosion, floodplain development, and land use changes in a 0-order catchment in the Babikovce catchment, Myjava Hill Land, situated in western Slovakia. Sedimentological, pedological, geoarchaeological and historical data indicate two main periods of intensive hillslope erosion and gullying since the High Middle Ages. In particular, a few extreme precipitation events (or rapid snowmelts) caused intensive runoff events and gullying on cleared land. The formation of the gully system and fan deposits in the Babikovce catchment and other areas also forced the occurrence of intensive muddy floods and caused floodplain aggradation and meander changes along rivers in the Myjava Hill Land. As a result, the development of the dense network of permanent gullies in the Myjava Hill Land can be associated with the transformation of woodland into farmland and later land abandonment. Today, the area is highly truncated by soil erosion and very difficult to farm. (C) 2013 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved

Refined prediction of vertical gradient of gravity at Etna volcano gravity network (Italy)

Predicted values of the vertical gradient of gravity (VGG) on benchmarks of Etna’s monitoring system, based on calculation of the topographic contribution to the theoretical free-air gradient, are compared with VGG values observed in situ. The verification campaign indicated that improvements are required when predicting the VGGs at such networks. Our work identified the following factors to be resolved: (a) accuracy of the benchmark position; (b) gravitational effect of buildings and roadside walls adjacent to benchmarks; (c) accuracy of the digital elevation model (DEM) in the proximity of benchmarks. Benchmark positions were refined using precise geodetic methods. The gravitational effects of the benchmark-adjacent walls and buildings were modeled and accounted for in the prediction. New high-resolution DEMs were produced in the innermost zone at some benchmarks based on drone-flown photogrammetry to improve the VGG prediction at those benchmarks. The three described refinements in the VGG prediction improved the match between predicted and in situ observed VGGs at the network considerably. The standard deviation of differences between the measured and predicted VGG values decreased from 36 to 13 μ Gal/m.Published299-3171IT. Reti di monitoraggioJCR Journa