Emil MARINESCU Oana MITITELU-IONUȘ 10.52846/AUCSG.23.1.01 10.52846/AUCSG.23.1.01

Abstract

This study highlights the relationship between the dynamics of the hydrological regime in a river basin and the morphodynamic potential that appears in the context of increasing frequency and intensity of current climatic phenomena. Climate change characterized by the high frequency and intensity of torrential rains and floods, especially in the last decade, with a maximum amplitude in the summer months (June-July), alternating with periods of drought have brought to a series of geomorphological changes in the Gilort river basin. These processes are amplified by the high degree of fragmentation of the relief, by the presence of springs that feed the hydrographic network and by the important rainfall contribution to the formation of river flows. In the high mountainous area of the basin, there are a series of debris flows that have been triggered in the last ten years, during torrential rains and exceptional floods, by major changes in the land cover and by the transport of materials in the drainage section. At the exit of the mountain, the longitudinal profile of the river changes radically with the decrease of the slope, so that most of the coarse alluvium is deposited in the riverbed in the sectors of the contact depressions at the foot of the mountain. At the contact between the mountains and the Subcarpathian Depression, due to a pronounced decrease of the riverbed slope, the phenomenon of bed aggradation occurs. In this study, all these geomorphological processes are explained from the perspective of hydrological and climatic influence combined with changes in land cover.

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