The steady socio-economic development over the past decades has led to a substantial modification of our landscapes, leading to a progressive increase of the influence of anthropogenic factors on the hydrological processes. This evolution concerns almost all experimental river basins and it is of utmost importance to keep the role of those factors under close investigation. Changes in land-use (urbanisation, forest cutting, river straightening or renaturation, etc.) are continuously changing key parameters in the hydrological cycle and are thus likely to have significant impacts on the rainfall-runoff transformation processes.
The session will focus on the presentation and discussion of examples of clearly identified changes in hydrological processes and that are of anthropogenic origin. The case studies do not specifically need to be located in urban areas. They can relate to basically any anthropogenic factor that is likely to alter the rainfall-runoff transformation in a rural, forest or urban experimental basin.
The scope of the session is to give an overview of :
(i) recent ongoing measurements in the experimental river basins throughout Europe (or elsewhere);
(ii) changes in the rainfall-runoff transformation that can clearly be linked to anthropogenic factors (can also include effects such as river bank erosion, etc.);
(iii) techniques that have been developed to monitor, study and quantify specific processes that have an anthropogenic origin (e.g. surface runoff on forest roads).
(iv) techniques that are adapted to the study of environments that are under the influence of anthropogenic factors (e.g. rainfall measurements in urban areas, first flush studies, etc.).
The session's ultimate objective is to provide an overview and quantification of the influence of anthropogenic factors on hydrological processes in experimental river basins. The evolution of the importance of those factors over longer time lags is of particular interest.