Modelling the silting-up of a small reservoir fed by a temporary river: the Torrebianca reservoir study case (Puglia, SE Italy)

The paper presents a first attempt to quantify the siltation in a man-made reservoir (Torrebianca) in South-East Italy. The FLORENCE model was used to quantify siltation and a multi-scale modelling approach was developed to identify the main source areas of the transported material. The total specific wet sediment production at the reservoir was quantified in 13.15 t ha^-1 yr^-1. The Celone river basin is the major source of both sediment and water feeds into reservoir. At sub-basin scale the modelling results show that within the Celone river basin the main source areas of sediment were the upstream zone and the valley area. The floodplain area, where the river assumes a braided morphology features, instead acts as a sink for the coarse material. Based on these results, it was estimated that, from 2000 to 2017, in the absence of appropriate removal operations, the reservoir may have lost 13.77%. These results suggest that a better management measures to reduce sediment transport and silting are needed.