Facteurs du ravinement dans la dorsale tunisienne et le cap bon

Au sein d’une stratégie nationale de mobilisation des eaux de surface, la Tunisie a réalisé près de 700 lacs et barrages collinaires depuis les années 90, principalement dans la Dorsale tunisienne et le Cap Bon. En contribuant à l’envasement de ces retenues, l’érosion hydrique diminue la capacité de mobilisation. Pour raisonner une stratégie de lutte anti-érosive dans les bassins versants qui soit plus efficace que ce qu’elle n’est actuellement, il est fondamental de mieux identifier et comprendre les principaux mécanismes responsables de l’envasement des retenues. En milieu méditerranéen, le rôle des très nombreux systèmes ravinaires a plusieurs fois été pointé du doigt pour expliquer l’envasement rapide de certaines retenues.Dans ce contexte, le présent travail se fixe comme objectif d’évaluer, à l’échelle de la Dorsale et du Cap Bon, les facteurs qui expliquent la présence et la dynamique morphologique actuelle du ravinement.Pour cela, une démarche en trois étapes a été retenue. Il s’agit d’abord de cartographier, sous SIG, l’évolution des caractéristiques (position, caractéristiques géométriques, processus actifs) du réseau hydrographique (oueds et ravins) sur une période de plus de 50 ans par interprétation de différents jeux de photographies aériennes actuelles et historiques. Une cartographie des facteurs, aussi bien bio-physiques (géologie/pédologie et pente) qu’anthropiques (occupation du sol et aménagements), susceptibles d’expliquer la présence et la morpho-dynamique des systèmes ravinaires est également réalisée. La seconde étape consiste à établir le rôle des facteurs biophysiques et anthropiques sur la présence de ravins en analysant les corrélations spatiales entre facteurs et présence de ravins pour l’ensemble des dates analysées. La dernière étape consiste à analyser le rôle associé de ces mêmes facteurs et du climat sur la dynamique du ravinement en recherchant cette fois ci des corrélations spatiales entre facteur et évolution des longueurs de ravins pour chaque période séparant deux cartographies.Cette démarche, mise en oeuvre sur plusieurs bassins versants représentatifs de la diversité des contextes de la Dorsale Tunisienne et du Cap Bon, permet de quantifier les facteurs prépondérants de la distribution et de la dynamique actuelle des ravins sur chaque bassin et à l’échelle de la Dorsale Tunisienne et du Cap Bon. La lithologie et la pente sont les deux facteurs les plus impliqués dans l’explication de la présence des ravins. En fait, la lithologie formée de roche dure montre beaucoup moins de densité de ravins que les autres lithologies (intercalation roche tendre/roche dure, et roche tendre). Par contre, plus la pente est élevée plus la densité des ravins est forte. La dynamique dans le temps du ravinement dans la Dorsale tunisienne et le Cap Bon est fortement dépendante du facteur climatique et des interventions humaines (aménagements de conservation des eaux et des sols et défrichement de la forêt)

Déterminisme du ruissellement et de l'érosion hydrique de la parcelle au versant en milieu méditerranéen marneux

La lutte contre l’érosion hydrique passe par une meilleure compréhension et modélisation des mécanismes en jeu depuis les zones « source » jusqu’aux zones de dépôt des sédiments. Ce papier présente et analyse 4 années de mesures du ruissellement et de l’érosion au niveau de trois stations de mesures construites sur le bassin versant de Kamech (Cap Bon, Tunisie) à l’exutoire d’une parcelle agricole (1.32 ha), d’une ravine (1.37 ha) et du micro-bassin (15.2 ha) englobant la parcelle et la ravine. L’objectif de ce papier est de tester les facteurs déterminants du ruissellement et de l’érosion sur chaque site et de comparer le fonctionnement hydro-érosif entre les trois stations. Les résultats montrent un comportement hydrologique et érosif très similaire aux trois échelles. Le ruissellement apparaît principalement guidé par la dynamique de fermeture des très nombreuses fentes de retrait qui apparaissent chaque été sur le bassin. De bonnes corrélations linéaires entre pluie et lame ruisselée ont pu être établies sur les trois stations en différenciant les périodes avant et après le cumul de pluie de 250 mm. Les masses érodées présentent de bonnes corrélations avec les débits maximaux (R² entre 0.64 et 0.97) et avec les masses érodées aux autres stations (R² de 0.88 à 0.96). Grâce à ces relations, les masses érodées ont pu être reconstituées pour les événements ruisselants sans données d’érosion mesurées, ces événements contribuant à moins de 20% des bilans érosifs. Sur les 4 années de mesure, les taux d’érosion atteignent 29.2 t/ha/an pour la parcelle, 38.4 t/ha/an pour la ravine et 22.1 t/ha/an pour le microbassin. Les différences de taux d’érosion s’expliquent principalement par i) la contribution des flancs de la ravine mesurées par des suivis topographiques, ii) la présence au sein du microbassin de zones de parcours (3.6 ha) peu productrices de sédiments

Improving the TanDEM-X Digital Elevation Model for flood modelling using flood extents from Synthetic Aperture Radar images

The topography of many floodplains in the developed world has now been surveyed with high resolution sensors such as airborne LiDAR (Light Detection and Ranging), giving accurate Digital Elevation Models (DEMs) that facilitate accurate flood inundation modelling. This is not always the case for remote rivers in developing countries. However, the accuracy of DEMs produced for modelling studies on such rivers should be enhanced in the near future by the high resolution TanDEM-X WorldDEM. In a parallel development, increasing use is now being made of flood extents derived from high resolution Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) images for calibrating, validating and assimilating observations into flood inundation models in order to improve these. This paper discusses an additional use of SAR flood extents, namely to improve the accuracy of the TanDEM-X DEM in the floodplain covered by the flood extents, thereby permanently improving this DEM for future flood modelling and other studies. The method is based on the fact that for larger rivers the water elevation generally changes only slowly along a reach, so that the boundary of the flood extent (the waterline) can be regarded locally as a quasi-contour. As a result, heights of adjacent pixels along a small section of waterline can be regarded as samples with a common population mean. The height of the central pixel in the section can be replaced with the average of these heights, leading to a more accurate estimate. While this will result in a reduction in the height errors along a waterline, the waterline is a linear feature in a two-dimensional space. However, improvements to the DEM heights between adjacent pairs of waterlines can also be made, because DEM heights enclosed by the higher waterline of a pair must be at least no higher than the corrected heights along the higher waterline, whereas DEM heights not enclosed by the lower waterline must in general be no lower than the corrected heights along the lower waterline. In addition, DEM heights between the higher and lower waterlines can also be assigned smaller errors because of the reduced errors on the corrected waterline heights. The method was tested on a section of the TanDEM-X Intermediate DEM (IDEM) covering an 11km reach of the Warwickshire Avon, England. Flood extents from four COSMO-SKyMed images were available at various stages of a flood in November 2012, and a LiDAR DEM was available for validation. In the area covered by the flood extents, the original IDEM heights had a mean difference from the corresponding LiDAR heights of 0.5 m with a standard deviation of 2.0 m, while the corrected heights had a mean difference of 0.3 m with standard deviation 1.2 m. These figures show that significant reductions in IDEM height bias and error can be made using the method, with the corrected error being only 60% of the original. Even if only a single SAR image obtained near the peak of the flood was used, the corrected error was only 66% of the original. The method should also be capable of improving the final TanDEM-X DEM and other DEMs, and may also be of use with data from the SWOT (Surface Water and Ocean Topography) satellite

Satellite-supported flood forecasting in river networks: a real case study

Satellite-based (e.g., Synthetic Aperture Radar [SAR]) water level observations (WLOs) of the floodplain can be sequentially assimilated into a hydrodynamic model to decrease forecast uncertainty. This has the potential to keep the forecast on track, so providing an Earth Observation (EO) based flood forecast system. However, the operational applicability of such a system for floods developed over river networks requires further testing. One of the promising techniques for assimilation in this field is the family of ensemble Kalman (EnKF) filters. These filters use a limited-size ensemble representation of the forecast error covariance matrix. This representation tends to develop spurious correlations as the forecast-assimilation cycle proceeds, which is a further complication for dealing with floods in either urban areas or river junctions in rural environments. Here we evaluate the assimilation of WLOs obtained from a sequence of real SAR overpasses (the X-band COSMO-Skymed constellation) in a case study. We show that a direct application of a global Ensemble Transform Kalman Filter (ETKF) suffers from filter divergence caused by spurious correlations. However, a spatially-based filter localization provides a substantial moderation in the development of the forecast error covariance matrix, directly improving the forecast and also making it possible to further benefit from a simultaneous online inflow error estimation and correction. Additionally, we propose and evaluate a novel along-network metric for filter localization, which is physically-meaningful for the flood over a network problem. Using this metric, we further evaluate the simultaneous estimation of channel friction and spatially-variable channel bathymetry, for which the filter seems able to converge simultaneously to sensible values. Results also indicate that friction is a second order effect in flood inundation models applied to gradually varied flow in large rivers. The study is not conclusive regarding whether in an operational situation the simultaneous estimation of friction and bathymetry helps the current forecast. Overall, the results indicate the feasibility of stand-alone EO-based operational flood forecasting

Relationship of weather types on the seasonal and spatial variability of rainfall, runoff, and sediment yield in the western Mediterranean basin

Rainfall is the key factor to understand soil erosion processes, mechanisms, and rates. Most research was conducted to determine rainfall characteristics and their relationship with soil erosion (erosivity) but there is little information about how atmospheric patterns control soil losses, and this is important to enable sustainable environmental planning and risk prevention. We investigated the temporal and spatial variability of the relationships of rainfall, runoff, and sediment yield with atmospheric patterns (weather types, WTs) in the western Mediterranean basin. For this purpose, we analyzed a large database of rainfall events collected between 1985 and 2015 in 46 experimental plots and catchments with the aim to: (i) evaluate seasonal differences in the contribution of rainfall, runoff, and sediment yield produced by the WTs; and (ii) to analyze the seasonal efficiency of the different WTs (relation frequency and magnitude) related to rainfall, runoff, and sediment yield. The results indicate two different temporal patterns: the first weather type exhibits (during the cold period: autumn and winter) westerly flows that produce the highest rainfall, runoff, and sediment yield values throughout the territory; the second weather type exhibits easterly flows that predominate during the warm period (spring and summer) and it is located on the Mediterranean coast of the Iberian Peninsula. However, the cyclonic situations present high frequency throughout the whole year with a large influence extended around the western Mediterranean basin. Contrary, the anticyclonic situations, despite of its high frequency, do not contribute significantly to the total rainfall, runoff, and sediment (showing the lowest efficiency) because of atmospheric stability that currently characterize this atmospheric pattern. Our approach helps to better understand the relationship of WTs on the seasonal and spatial variability of rainfall, runoff and sediment yield with a regional scale based on the large dataset and number of soil erosion experimental stations

Relationship of Weather Types on the Seasonal and Spatial Variability of Rainfall, Runoff, and Sediment Yield in the Western Mediterranean Basin

Rainfall is the key factor to understand soil erosion processes, mechanisms, and rates. Most research was conducted to determine rainfall characteristics and their relationship with soil erosion (erosivity) but there is little information about how atmospheric patterns control soil losses, and this is important to enable sustainable environmental planning and risk prevention. We investigated the temporal and spatial variability of the relationships of rainfall, runoff, and sediment yield with atmospheric patterns (weather types, WTs) in the western Mediterranean basin. For this purpose, we analyzed a large database of rainfall events collected between 1985 and 2015 in 46 experimental plots and catchments with the aim to: (i) evaluate seasonal differences in the contribution of rainfall, runoff, and sediment yield produced by the WTs; and (ii) to analyze the seasonal efficiency of the different WTs (relation frequency and magnitude) related to rainfall, runoff, and sediment yield. The results indicate two different temporal patterns: the first weather type exhibits (during the cold period: autumn and winter) westerly flows that produce the highest rainfall, runoff, and sediment yield values throughout the territory; the second weather type exhibits easterly flows that predominate during the warm period (spring and summer) and it is located on the Mediterranean coast of the Iberian Peninsula. However, the cyclonic situations present high frequency throughout the whole year with a large influence extended around the western Mediterranean basin. Contrary, the anticyclonic situations, despite of its high frequency, do not contribute significantly to the total rainfall, runoff, and sediment (showing the lowest efficiency) because of atmospheric stability that currently characterize this atmospheric pattern. Our approach helps to better understand the relationship of WTs on the seasonal and spatial variability of rainfall, runoff and sediment yield with a regional scale based on the large dataset and number of soil erosion experimental stations.Spanish Government (Ministry of Economy and Competitiveness, MINECO) and FEDER Projects: CGL2014 52135-C3-3-R, ESP2017-89463-C3-3-R, CGL2014-59946-R, CGL2015-65569-R, CGL2015-64284-C2-2-R, CGL2015-64284-C2-1-R, CGL2016-78075-P, GL2008-02879/BTE, LEDDRA 243857, RECARE-FP7, CGL2017-83866-C3-1-R, and PCIN-2017-061/AEI. Dhais Peña-Angulo received a “Juan de la Cierva” postdoctoral contract (FJCI-2017-33652 Spanish Ministry of Economy and Competitiveness, MEC). Ana Lucia acknowledge the "Brigitte-Schlieben-Lange-Programm". The “Geoenvironmental Processes and Global Change” (E02_17R) was financed by the Aragón Government and the European Social Fund. José Andrés López-Tarazón acknowledges the Secretariat for Universities and Research of the Department of the Economy and Knowledge of the Autonomous Government of Catalonia for supporting the Consolidated Research Group 2014 SGR 645 (RIUS- Fluvial Dynamics Research Group). Artemi Cerdà thank the funding of the OCDE TAD/CRP JA00088807. José Martínez-Fernandez acknowledges the project Unidad de Excelencia CLU-2018-04 co-funded by FEDER and Castilla y León Government. Ane Zabaleta is supported by the Hydro-Environmental Processes consolidated research group (IT1029-16, Basque Government). This paper has the benefit of the Lab and Field Data Pool created within the framework of the COST action CONNECTEUR (ES1306)

Signatures of degraded body tissues and environmental conditions in grave soils from a Roman and an Anglo-Scandinavian age burial from Hungate, York

Despite the importance of human burials in archaeological investigations of past peoples and their lives, the soil matrix that accommodates the remains is rarely considered, attention being focused mainly on visible features. The decomposition of a buried corpse and associated organic matter influences both the organic composition and, directly or indirectly, the microstructure of the burial matrix, producing signatures that could be preserved over archaeological timescales. If preserved, such signatures have potential to reveal aspects of the individual’s lifestyle and cultural practices as well as providing insights into taphonomic processes. Using organic chemical analysis and soil micromorphology we have identified organic signatures and physical characteristics relating to the presence of the body, and its decomposition in grave soils associated with two human skeletons (one Roman age and one Anglo-Scandinavian age) from Hungate, York, UK. The organic signatures, including contributions from body tissues, gut contents, bone degradation and input from microbiota, exhibit spatial variations with respect to anatomical location and features of the immediate burial environment. In the Roman grave broad changes in redox conditions associated with the decomposition of the corpse and disturbance from the excavation and use of an Anglo-Scandinavian age cess pit that partially cuts the grave were evident. Leachate from the cess pit was shown to exacerbate the degradation of the skeletal remains in the regions closest to it, also degrading and depleting spherulites in the soil, through decalcification of the bone and liberation of bone-derived cholesterol into the soil matrix. The findings from this work have implications for future archaeo- and contemporary forensic investigations of buried human remains

Using kites for 3-D mapping of gullies at decimetre-resolution over several square kilometres: a case study on the Kamech catchment, Tunisia

Monitoring agricultural areas threatened by soil erosion often requires decimetre topographic information over areas of several square kilometres. Airborne lidar and remotely piloted aircraft system (RPAS) imagery have the ability to provide repeated decimetre-resolution and -accuracy digital elevation models (DEMs) covering these extents, which is unrealistic with ground surveys. However, various factors hamper the dissemination of these technologies in a wide range of situations, including local regulations for RPAS and the cost for airborne laser systems and medium-format RPAS imagery. The goal of this study is to investigate the ability of low-tech kite aerial photography to obtain DEMs with decimetre resolution and accuracy that permit 3-D descriptions of active gullying in cultivated areas of several square kilometres. To this end, we developed and assessed a two-step workflow. First, we used both heuristic experimental approaches in field and numerical simulations to determine the conditions that make a photogrammetric flight possible and effective over several square kilometres with a kite and a consumer-grade camera. Second, we mapped and characterised the entire gully system of a test catchment in 3-D. We showed numerically and experimentally that using a thin and light line for the kite is key for a complete 3-D coverage over several square kilometres. We thus obtained a decimetre-resolution DEM covering 3.18 km2 with a mean error and standard deviation of the error of +7 and 22 cm respectively, hence achieving decimetre accuracy. With this data set, we showed that high-resolution topographic data permit both the detection and characterisation of an entire gully system with a high level of detail and an overall accuracy of 74 % compared to an independent field survey. Kite aerial photography with simple but appropriate equipment is hence an alternative tool that has been proven to be valuable for surveying gullies with sub-metric details in a square-kilometre-scale catchment. This case study suggests that access to high-resolution topographic data on these scales can be given to the community, which may help facilitate a better understanding of gullying processes within a broader spectrum of conditions.</p