Conceptual and numerical models applied on the river pellice (North western italy)

Models are a simplifying abstraction of reality. Furthermore, they provide one of the crucial links between the analysis of processes and the study of the world around us, the two traditional activities of geomorphology. Starting from these considerations, the present research illustrates the reconstruction of spatial variation in channel morphology in the long, medium and shortterm period using the traditional geomorphologic methods of investigation. This reconstruction allows a preliminary comparison with the conceptual model of the Italian rivers but it leaves several doubts on river evolution in the short-term period. As a consequence, the numerical model has been introduced in order to estimate and evaluate a set of evolutionary scenarios along the river and to give an answer to its future evolution. In our research activity, we have applied the Conceptual Evolution Model (CEM) proposed by Surian and Rinaldi and its following updating for the Italian rivers and a cellular automaton (CA) model (CAESAR) at the case-study of the River Pellice, left tributary of the River Po in North Western Italy.