Impact of a volcanic eruption on the sediment connectivity of a Chilean river basin: the Calbuco study case

Volcanic eruptions are natural disturbances capable of introducing large quantities of sediment into river systems as to upset the transport regime for several years. Such a disturbance can have a strong impact on the water and sediment flows and consequently on the transport capacity. Moreover, changes in morphological settings and land cover lead to an alteration of the sediment connectivity within the catchment. This study aims to investigate the changes of sediment connectivity in a catchment affected by an explosive volcanic eruption using the Index of Connectivity (IC) with a multi-temporal approach. Potential variations were analyzed at the catchment scale over a period of 6 years, before and after the eruption. The study area, located in southern Chile, is the Blanco Este River basin (39,6 km²), affected by the eruption of the Calbuco volcano (April 2015, total volume of sediment expelled of about 0,28 km³) which profoundly changed its vegetation cover, geomorphology and hydrology. IC analyses were based on low-resolution and freely available data (i.e., GDEM, Landsat 8 satellite images). Through supervised image classification and field data survey, a Manning's n coefficient for overland flow is derived as weighting factor (W) due to its suitability to represent the impedance to sediment flows in catchments characterized by land cover variations. Following the eruption, bare soil cover on the basin doubled (from 5% to 10% of total basin area). Consequently, the multi-temporal analysis results in an overall increase of IC with the median value ranges from -3,58 to -3,26 in pre-eruptive (2015) and first post-eruptive scenario (2016), respectively. The connectivity maps show that the higher IC values (i.e. range from -1,23 to 1,66) are persistently located in three areas: at the base of the volcanic dome, on the steepest slopes near the main channel and in a sub-basin on the right side of the catchment. Moreover, the Difference of IC (DoIC) among different scenarios highlighted the major variations. Such changes are found along the volcano slopes, in a flat area located in the upper part of the basin and along the lower valley of the Rio Blanco Este. The study proposes a useful methodology to evaluate the sediment connectivity, and its evolutionary trends, in environments affected volcanic eruptions starting from low-resolution data and field survey. These results may help to better define types, location and typologies of interventions to improve the river management approaches, considering the ongoing cascading processes. This research is funded by the Fondecyt 1200079 project.