Sul monitoraggio in continuo delle portate in torrenti e sorgenti alpini-Il Torrente Mis

Water diversion for irrigation and power supply causes an effective decreasing of environmental flows in alpine area, with negative effects on the river ecosystem. As a consequence it’s worthwhile to assess environmental flow for the proper management of water diversion. This type of assessment is generally performed by hydrologic methods taking into account duration curves or morphological features of the watersheds or by naturalistic parameters. Another method is to directly measure creeks and springs water discharge in order to construct a continuous watershed outflow hydrogram. The study area is located in the Belluno Dolomites National Park (Veneto Region, Northern Italy). Mis watershed is taken into account; this stream is affected by hydraulic diversion for hydroelectric power. The upper reach of the watershed is fully located inside a protected area; from an hydrogeologic stand-point dominant groundwater flow is of a karst type with few important springs contributing to the major percentage of creeks base flow. We have installed a monitoring system based upon total amount of 2 continuous stream stage monitoring devices and 1 in the main spring. The paper deals with the description of the applied methodology and the first results of the monitoring.