Identifying the Morphodynamic Potential of Gilort River Sections: Natura 2000 Site as Case Study

ABSTRACT River dynamics involve the input of water and sediment from the watershed, shaping the interaction between flow regime, sediment transport, and channel morphology. This study aims to present a novel methodology for identifying dynamic river sectors, based on a comprehensive multicriteria analysis encompassing various natural and anthropogenic factors observed or directly measured in the field, as well as extracted from available databases. The proposed methodology relies on a spatial multicriteria analysis, a valuable method for integrating large spatial datasets and efficiently estimating the spatial distribution of dynamics at a general level. Alongside the multicriteria analysis, this study incorporates several published and validated analyzes, such as the Bank Erosion Hazard Index and Morphological Quality Index, to derive relevant indicators reflecting the current field conditions. The analysis was conducted for 14 relatively homogeneous sectors of the Gilort river, resulting in a classification of these sectors based on morphodynamic potential, ranging from very low to very high.