Authors: Franciele Zanandrea, Gean Paulo Michel & Masato Kobiyama
Published in: Geomorphology, 2020
The article proposes a new approach for weighting impedance in the sediment connectivity index (IC), based on Relative Smoothness (RS) derived from Manning’s coefficients. Comparing four impedance estimation methods in the Mascarada River basin (320 km²), the results show that weighted RS better represents vegetated areas — especially dense forests — outperforming alternatives such as the USLE/RUSLE C factor and standardized roughness indices, which do not adequately capture sediment retention by forest vegetation.