Last week we helped SIU-Carbondale’s NSF-funded IGERT program welcome Guido Zolezzi for a special lecture.  Dr. Zolezzi is a professor in Civil and Environmental Engineering at the University of Trento in Italy.

Dr. Zolezzi heads the European SMART (Science for Management of Rivers and their Tidal Systems) program, an interdisciplinary doctoral partnership much like SIUC’s IGERT program.

He gave a fascinating talk on the downstream effects of dam releases in European rivers.  His work has been recently published in various issues of  Ecohydrology and River Research and Applications and includes study of thermal effects of power plants, thermal peaking on inverts, and upstream aggradation related to channel expansion.

I thought I understood urban rivers, but Dr. Zolezzi’s research on the Kugart River, in the Kyrgyz Republic, a great story of how Cold-War Soviet engineers struggled with design of a high-bedload urban channel, changed my view of urban channel hydraulics and sediment transport.  Map link here.

A fantastic speaker in English and a charming man, Dr. Zolezzi is  currently on sabbatical at Texas A & M University. 

We set up an Emriver Em3 in SIUC’s Morris Library for a pre-lecture reception; we had a wonderful talk with Dr. Zolezzi there.

Thanks to our colleagues at SIUC for organizing this meeting, especially Nicholas Pinter.

Here are recent publications.  I could not find a comprehensive list in English, these are from Dr. Zolezzi’s CV in Italian(PDF):

Zolezzi, G., Siviglia, A., Toffolon, M., Maiolini, B. 2010. Thermopeaking in Alpine streams: event characterization and time scales. Ecohydrology. DOI: 10.1002/eco.132 (In corso di stampa)

Luchi, R., Zolezzi, G., Tubino, M. 2010. Modelling mid-channel bars in meandering rivers. Earth Surface Processes and Landforms. DOI: 10.1002/esp.1947

Luchi, R., Hooke, J.M., Zolezzi, G., Bertoldi, W. 2010. Width variations and mid-channel bar inception in meanders: River Bollin (UK). Geomorphology. 119, 1–8. doi:10.1016/j.geomorph.2010.01.010.

Zolezzi, G., Bellin, A., Bruno, M. C., Maiolini, B., Siviglia A., 2009, Assessing hydrological alterations at multiple temporal scales: Adige River, Italy, Water Resources. Research., 45, W12421, doi:10.1029/2008WR007266.

Bertoldi, W., Gurnell, A., Surian, N., Tockner, K., Zanoni, L., Ziliani, L., Zolezzi, G. 2009.
Understanding reference processes: linkages between river flows, sediment dynamics and vegetated landforms along the Tagliamento River, Italy. River Research and Applications, DOI:10.1002/rra.1233.

Zolezzi, G., Luchi, R. and Tubino, M. 2009, Morphodynamic regime of gravel bed, single-thread meandering rivers, J. Geophys. Res., 114, F01005, doi:10.1029/2007JF000968..

Siviglia, A., Repetto, R., Zolezzi, G. And Tubino, M. 2008 River bed evolution due to channel expansion: general behaviour and application to a case study (Kugart River, Kyrgyz Republic).River Research and Applications 24 (9),1272 – 1287, DOI: 10.1002/rra.1095.