Abstract
Glacier retreat and permafrost degradation are mechanisms through which climate controls sediment transfer and landscape evolution. Prediction of bedload transport is crucial for hazard assessment but knowledge of this processes is still limited, especially at high elevations. This study presents recent research efforts devoted to obtain indirect bedload measurements through seismic monitoring in the Sulden/Solda basin, a glaciarized and permafrost catchment located in the Eastern Italian Alps. A low-cost geophone network was installed in summer 2017 along the channel, immediately downstream from the glacier front, and three months of very high frequency data (5 kHz) were collected. The joint analysis of this seismic dataset and weather data allow drawing some preliminary considerations about the potential of seismic techniques for characterizing bedload transport in periglacial environments. Daily cycles and longer-period trends in geophone data are respectively correlated with flow discharge and air temperature, suggesting a complex climatic control of sediment transport.