2 Background theory - HydrogeomorphologyTools/SedInConnect_2.3 GitHub Wiki

The index of sediment connectivity IC, as proposed by Cavalli et al. (2013) based on the work of Borselli et al. (2008), is a distributed geomorphometric index that can be easily derived from a Digital Elevation Model (DEM). Thus, it mainly focuses on the influence of topography on sediment connectivity, whereas other aspects such as type, extent and location of sediment sources are not taken into account. IC is intended to represent the linkage between different parts of the catchment and aims, in particular, at evaluating the potential connection between hillslopes and features of interest (e.g. catchment outlet, main channel network, a given cross section along the channel) or elements acting as storage areas (sinks) for transported sediment (e.g., lake, retention basin). In particular, the developed tools allow estimating sediment connectivity considering two aspects: (i) sediment delivery across the whole drainage system (i.e. the potential connection of sediment between hillslopes and catchment outlets), and (ii) sediment coupling-decoupling between hillslopes and selected targets or sinks. The choice of modeling these two aspects stems from the need to address two main sediment management issues: (i) what is the probability that sediment from a certain sediment source will reach the catchment outlet? (ii) what is the probability that sediment eroded from the hillslopes will attain the target of interest? The stand-alone application is based on Python scripting with bindings for processing geographical datasets; it uses functionalities and algorithms available in TauDEM 5.2 tool (Tarboton 2013).