Morphosedimentary dynamics of ephemeral rivers affected by gravel mining: GIS mapping and geomorphic change detection

Mediterranean regions have a long history of human occupation and land uses, particularly centered next to fluvial courses. Environmental pressures along rivers increased as the population increased since late XIX century. In Spain, rivers are public spaces and only recently public administrations became sensible in regard of the environmental conditions of fluvial corridors. In Europe, the Water Framework Directive 2000/60/EC (WFD) was adopted in 2000 in order to implement an ambitious piece of European environmental standards for river management and water quality conservation. In the Mediterranean region most river courses cease to flow for some time of the year, and the proposed methods to control river environmental status, i.e. water quality measurements or identification of aquatic biota, have practical problems for their implementation. Thus, non-perennial rivers lack of effective environmental protection, even so, they constitute more than 50% of the total river network and sometimes reaching 90% in Mediterranean basins, e.g. Segura River basin..