<abstract xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml"><p>Soil sealing is the permanent covering of the land surface by buildings, infrastructures or any impermeable artificial material. Beside the loss of fertile soils with a direct impact on food security, soil sealing modifies the hydrological cycle. This can cause an increased flooding risk, due to urban development in potential risk areas and to the increased volumes of runoff. This work estimates the increase of runoff due to sealing following urbanization and land take in the plain of Emilia Romagna (Italy), using the Green and Ampt infiltration model for two rainfall return periods (20 and 200 years) in two different years, 1976 and 2008. To this goal a hydropedological approach was adopted in order to characterize soil hydraulic properties via locally calibrated pedotransfer functions (PTF). PTF inputs were estimated via sequential Gaussian simulations coupled with a simple kriging with varying local means, taking into account soil type and dominant land use. Results show that in the study area an average increment of 8.4% in sealed areas due to urbanization and sprawl induces an average increment in surface runoff equal to 3.5 and 2.7% respectively for 20 and 200-years return periods, with a maximum > 20% for highly sealed coast areas.</p></abstract>

Soil sealing is the permanent covering of the land surface by buildings, infrastructures or any impermeable artificial material. Beside the loss of fertile soils with a direct impact on food security, soil sealing modifies the hydrological cycle. This can cause an increased flooding risk, due to urban development in potential risk areas and to the increased volumes of runoff. This work estimates the increase of runoff due to sealing following urbanization and land take in the plain of Emilia Romagna (Italy), using the Green and Ampt infiltration model for two rainfall return periods (20 and 200 years) in two different years, 1976 and 2008. To this goal a hydropedological approach was adopted in order to characterize soil hydraulic properties via locally calibrated pedotransfer functions (PTF). PTF inputs were estimated via sequential Gaussian simulations coupled with a simple kriging with varying local means, taking into account soil type and dominant land use. Results show that in the study area an average increment of 8.4% in sealed areas due to urbanization and sprawl induces an average increment in surface runoff equal to 3.5 and 2.7% respectively for 20 and 200-years return periods, with a maximum > 20% for highly sealed coast areas.

Modelling the impact of increasing soil sealing on runoff coefficients at regional scale: a hydropedological approach

CNR IBIMET - Via Madonna del Piano 10. I-50019 Sesto F.no (FI), Italy

Leibniz Centre for Agricultural Landscape Research, Institute of Socio-Economics, Müncheberg, Germany

GECOsistema srl - Botengasse, 27 I-39050 Jenesien (BZ), Regione Emilia Romagna - Autorità dei bacini regionali romagnoli, via Biondini, 1 I-47100 Forlì (FC), Italy.

Regione Emilia Romagna - Servizio Geologico, Sismico e dei Suoli, Viale A. Moro, Bologna BO), Italy.

Journal of Hydrology and Hydromechanics

Soil sealing is the permanent covering of the land surface by buildings, infrastructures or any impermeable artificial material. Beside the loss of fertile...

Modelling the impact of increasing soil sealing on runoff coefficients at regional scale: a hydropedological approach

Published Online: Feb 13, 2014

Page range: 33 - 42

DOI: https://doi.org/10.2478/johh-2014-0005

This content is open access.