The concept of connectivity, applied to hydrology and geomorphology is of general concern. Hydrological response of catchments and associated soil erosion, water quality and provision of related ecosystem services are considered key issues by society: many research projects across Europe have been funded for this reason. Many studies have incorporated the concept of connectivity and, recently, there has been an increase in the interest from different points of view: theoretical approaches, new indices and models, availability of specific software, development of field procedures applying new technologies, application to land and water resource management, etc.
The objective of the short course is to provide, a brief, useful and complete general view of what hydrological and sediment connectivity is, considering up-to-date concepts and theories, available software, modelling and experimental techniques. All these topics are exposed and discussed by expertise researchers expertise in these topics. The target audience are mainly PhD students and early career researchers.

The short course is divided into 4 talks combining theory and practice:

17.30-17.35: Introduction, by Juan F. Martínez-Murillo, PhD. (University of Málaga).

17.35-17.50: Connectivity concepts in Geomorphology: a brief overview, by Ronald Pöppl, PhD. (University of Wien).
Summary: "In this 15’ lecture basic definitions and conceptual models in geomorphological connectivity research will be presented and critically discussed.
Note: Please have a look at conceptual key papers in geomorphological/hydrological connectivity research and choose (a) conceptual framework(s) on which you think your studies are mainly based."

17.50-18.35: 'Inputs, software and tools for modelling hydrological and sediment connectivity in diverse environments', by Stefano Crema, PhD. (CNR-IRPI) and Dr. Manuel López-Vicente, PhD. (Aula Dei-CSIC).
Summary:
"The present tutorial will cover i) the set up of basic inputs (topography, land uses, linear elements), ii) an overview of GIS and software environments for connectivity assessment (SAGA, QGIS, ArcMap, TauDEM, Python scripting and SedInConnect), iii) tools and workflows (DEM correction, algorithms implementation, vectorial and raster operations) to assess hydrological and sediment connectivity.
In particular, the first part will focus on the computation ofthe Borselli's index of runoff and sediment connectivity for a typical Mediterranean agro-ecosystem while the second part will target the characterization of sediment connectivity in alpine catchments. The proposed examples will also point up the advantages deriving from the exploitation of high resolution DTMs."
Note: In order to run some of the explained tools we require TauDEM tools to be installed, download is available here: http://hydrology.usu.edu/taudem/taudem5/index.html). SedInConnect releases can be downloaded here: https://github.com/HydrogeomorphologyTools/SedInConnect_2.3/releases. The availability of a laptop is an advantage but not a requirement to attend the workshop."

18.35-18.50: Analysing the Index of Connectivity and Comparing Connectivity within Catchments, by Rens Masselink, PhD. (Wageningen University).
Summary: In this part of the short course we will give some examples of how the connectivity index results can be analysed in several ways. For example, we compare connectivity within different catchments by looking at the connectivity as a function from distance to the outlet and how the index of connectivity compares to model results.

18.50-19.00: Final remarks, by Juan F. Martínez-Murillo.