1Ștefan cel Mare University of Suceava, Faculty of History and Geography, Department of Geography,
Suceava, Romania
Pages:
44 - 55
Abstract:
Rivers in mountain areas have alluvial beds largely consisting of
coarse alluvia (blocks, cobble, gravel) mobilized and transported downstream
only during exceptional hydrological phenomena. Their distribution
influences river-bed stability, sediment transport rates and high-water levels,
because alluvial deposits define bed roughness. As a rule, especially in large
rivers, the size of alluvia deposited on river-beds gradually decreases
downstream (downstream fining), as the river transport capacity is reduced.
This tendency can be interrupted by discontinuities, caused by the lateral
input of alluvia or by anthropogenic interventions. The aim of this paper is to
analyze the spatial distribution of the size of bed material along two small
rivers, Gemenea and Slătioara, located in the northeastern part of the
Eastern Carpathians, Romania. The phenomena of grain-size fining or
coarsening of the material deposited along these river-beds are of low
intensity. The high degree of connectivity between river-bed and hillslopes
and scarps of meadow terraces has generally resulted in unimodal
distributions centered on the coarse fraction (gravel, cobble and blocks, over
60% of the total), whereas the fine fraction (sands) is below 1%. A slight
tendency of bimodality begins to emerge towards the lower course of the
Gemenea river profile (sand increases to slightly over 5% of the total bed
material). This occurs with meadow development and the reduction of the
connectivity between river-bed and adjacent hillslopes. Hence the conclusion
that lateral input and longitudinal sorting of particles are among the main
causes of bed deposits bimodality in our study area.
Keywords:
small mountain river, bed sediment, downstream fining, downstream coarsening, bimodality.