River Profile Analysis to Identify Active Tectonic Imprints in Rossenna Watershed, Northern Apennines, Italy

Abstract

Northern Apennines is tectonically an active fold and thrust belt. Digital Elevation Model (DEM) based
drainage network was extracted to analyze river profiles to document the influence of neotectonics on landscape
evolution in Rossenna river basin, northern Apennines Italy. This approach decodes the neotectonic signals by
computing channel steepness, Hack stream-length gradient (HSLG) and knickpoints analyses. The main objective was
to examine how spatially variable rock uplift relate to changes in river morphology. The results obtained are consistent
with the recent tectonic uplift of the region. The presence of knickpoint anomalies and higher values of steepness and
HSLG index in south west region and the lower segments of Rossenna River indicate high relative uplift in these areas,
which is related to the presence of strikeslip and thrust faulting. It is concluded that these results are useful to constrain
the active tectonics in a simpler and faster way using river profile analysis.
Keywords: DEM, neotectonics, river profile, steepness, knickpoints, Hack stream-length gradient index, Apennines