Silting estimation of the Farneto del Principe (Calabria, South Italy) artificial reservoir by means of the EPM model

Flaubert Nguebiapssi Kembeu^1,2, Gianpietro Imbrogno^1,2, Nadia Penna³, Domenico Ferraro³, Mariano Tenuta⁴, Maria De Filpo⁵, Giuseppe Cianflone^1,2 & Rocco Dominici^1,2
1Department of Biology, Ecology and Earth Sciences, University of Calabria, Rende, Italy.
²E3 Earth, Environment, Engineering spin-off, University of Calabria, Via Ponte Bucci.
³Department of Civil Engineering, University of Calabria, Rende, Italy.
⁴Department of Innovation and Information Engineering, Guglielmo Marconi University, Roma, Italy.
⁵Department of Territory and Environmental Protection, Calabria Region, Catanzaro, Italy.
⁶Consortium for the integral reclamation of the Cosentino Ionian basins, Trebisacce (CS), Italy.
Corresponding author e-mail: gianpietro.imbrogno@unical.it

In the present paper, the average annual silting of the Farneto del Principe artificial reservoir was estimated through the potential erosion model (EPM) in a GIS environment over a time range from 1991 to 2008. Four calculations were performed, the first by giving a value of the geo-lithological soil erodibility factor based on the table proposed in literature and three others by using different calibration methods (geomechanical, petrographic and granulometric). For each calculation, the net sediment volume arriving at the closing session was calculated. The net sediment volume values obtained have been compared with the average value of the siltation measured using the echo-sounder survey. It was noted that last three calculations show an overestimation of the silting of values of 45% for geomechanical calibration, 4% for petrographic calibration and 3% for granulometric calibration. Probable causes for this overestimation could be: i) the presence of the Esaro artificial lake at the closure section of the Farneto basin; ii) the fact that the EPM model incorporates in the net sediment volume value estimated part of the sediment trapped by infrastructures (bridges, waterfalls, etc.) along the river as no corrections are made for these during the appropriate calculation procedure. Although there are several overestimates, the results of the study show how the petrographic and granulometric calibrations proved to be better as they are closer to the real value of the silting.

geomechanical calibration, petrographic calibration, granulometric Calibration, sediment production, Farneto Basin, EPM Model.