Geomorphological evolution of the floodplain in mountain environment as a response to environmental changes (case study of the Belá River, Slovak Carpathians)

The multi-thread Belá River runs through the Liptov basin in the north part of Slovakia representing a braided-wandering river system. Flood events and a large volume of sediment transportation are crucial to keeping the braided processes, supported by the multiple channels re-division and formation of gravel bars. However, environmental changes in the last decades had been affecting the river system. The former braided river pattern had been gradually transformed and simplified to the braided-wandering river system. These morphological changes provide space for floodplain preservation, including benches formation and maintenance, landforms with a lack of attention in fluvial geomorphological research in the mountain gravel-bed rivers. A local incision of the river channel restricted the floodplain development limited only to ledges formation. The river landscape monitoring, based on a combination of the Earth observation data (on 11 time horizons) and field surveys allowed monitoring and evaluation of the response of the river systems to environmental changes (discharge decreasing, extreme floods reducing, land cover changes, anthropogenic interventions). Research on lateral shifting and incision of the river channel, as well as the research of the multiple floodplain levels, preserving benches as fine sediment storage, separated from the river, were carried out. Based on these results a process-oriented hypothesis of the recent lateral and vertical development of the floodplain will be formulated. This research was supported by the Science Grant Agency (VEGA) of the Ministry of Education of the Slovak Republic and the Slovak Academy of Sciences (02/0086/21).