FP6 priority

1.1.6   Sustainable Development, Global Change and Ecosystems

1.6.3

Title of the proposal

Suspended sediment load during extreme hydrological events from a small basin

Institute

Slovak Academy of Sciences, Institute of Hydrology
Racianska 75, 838 11 Bratislava, Slovak Republic

Contact

Research subject for a potential FP6 project

Research will focus on sediment transport and depletion during a runoff season and single floods, impact of rainless period on temporal variability of sediment availability resulted in so-called hysteresis effects during extreme rainfall-runoff events. Then the items above will be modelled in a small experimental agricultural basin in Strazov highlands (Western Slovakia). The modelling of sediment delivery from catchment surfaces into rivers remains a difficult problem. This is because, although erosion processes at the plot scale are reasonably well known and have been described in a number of erosion models, linkage with river system is ill defined and methods for modelling this linkage are currently limited.

The objective of the project is to improve knowledge on this linkage, impact of rainless period and possible climatic changes on hysteresis effects and better modelling of these effects based on data (measured suspended sediment concentrations and discharges) from the experimental basin. Results would also bring better total annual suspended sediment load estimations and a rate of extreme hydrological events on these estimations.

Recent international cooperation of the research team

Members of the research team participate in following international projects:
Regional Co-operation of the Danube Countries in Hydrology in Frame of IHP UNESCO;
Flow Regimes from International Experimental and Network Data (FRIEND);
European Reference Basins (ERB).

Proposer´s relevant publications related to the research subject

KONICEK, A., MIKLANEK, P., PEKAROVA, P., 1997: The estimation of pollutant loads from experimental mikrobasins during extreme hydrolgical events. Ecohydrological processes in small basins (ERB), UNESCO, Paris, 65-70.
KONICEK, A., PEKAROVA, P., MIKLANEK, P., 2000: Insoluble matter concentrations in rural basin runoff. Monitoring and modelling catchment water quantity and quality (ERB), UNESCO, Ghent, 183-186.
PEKAROVA, P., KONICEK, A., MIKLANEK, P., 1999: Testing of AGNPS model application in Slovak microbasins. Phys. Chem. Earth (B), Vol. 24, No. 4, pp. 303-305.