Morphometric measures to assess the maturity of the submerged drainage basins. The case of the Taranto Canyon upper reach

Meo A., Chiocci F. L, Senatore M. R.

Abstract

The upper reach of the Taranto Canyon is the main signature of the continental slope in the western Taranto Gulf. It starts at the shelf break 30 m deep and reaches 450 m of depth, covering a total area of about 50 km²; the minimum distance from the coast is 2,5 km. Multibeam data were acquired to reconstruct a detailed Digital Elevation Models (DEM), and then a morphometric analysis was carried out allowing to identify several drainage basins and to define the active morphodynamic processes acting in the upper reach. The measures of the morphometric parameters have allowed to obtain the hypsometric curves, reconstructed to establish the maturity [1] of drainage basin. The latter was divided in two branches, the northern one characterised by curves typical of “Youth” basins and the southern one with those typical of the "Maturity" basins. These results highlighted a different evolution of the two branches and active erosional processes are dominant in the northern branch while depositional processes affect the southern one. Because of the erosional processes produce the back shifting of the upper reach margin, an approaching of the northern branch margin to the coast can be hypothesized making the Metapontine coastline a vulnerable area.

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IMEKO TC

TC19 - Environmental Measurements

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