Cinca River Field Survey: sediment sampling and tree measurement

A field survey was performed on 26-28 November 2018 by Melissa Latella, Matteo B. Bertagni, Paolo Vezza and Carlo Camporeale (Envirofluidgroup, Department of Environmental, Land and Infrastructure Engineering, Polytechnic of Turin, Italy). The survey was carried out over the riparian area of the Cinca River, in a river segment located between the towns of Ballobar and Zaidín (Spain).

Sediment samples were collected through the Wolman Pebble Count method. Pictures of the samples constitute the input for the MATLAB-based image-processing tool BaseGrain. BaseGrain allows to extrapolate the intermediate diameter of a set of samples. The output diameters can be processed in order to obtain the grain size distribution, the d50 and d90, and the Manning coefficient.

Also vegetation features were measured during the survey. Tree diameter and height were collected in order to regress allometric curves, whereas the number of trees in areas of known extension allows to determine the spatial tree density.