Italian Fluvial Sediment Transport Database: A Comprehensive Hub for Archiving and Analyzing Hydrological Data

Abstract. Fluvial sediment transport plays a key role in geomorphological and hydrological processes, influencing river morphology, watershed and coastal sediment balances, and the environmental response to climatic and anthropogenic changes. In Italy, the availability of homogeneous and long-term data is strongly limited due to the discontinuity of monitoring activities and the fragmentation of existing sources. This study presents the development of a relational database and web application specifically designed for the collection, storage, and consultation of sediment transport data, aimed at integrating and enhancing heterogeneous datasets from both historical and contemporary monitoring networks: the Italian Sediment Transport Database (ISTD). The database architecture, developed in PostgreSQL with the PostGIS extension, enables a direct link between observational data and their associated geographical, instrumental, and methodological metadata, ensuring traceability, interoperability, and the possibility to perform multi-temporal analyses. The web interface, built using open-source technologies, allows controlled data entry and interactive data exploration through maps, tables, and export functions. Analysis of the archived datasets highlights strong instrumental, temporal, and spatial heterogeneity: some physical-chemical parameters (e.g., pH and electrical conductivity) show standardized measurement protocols, whereas sediment transport variables exhibit high methodological variability. Time series range from sub-daily to annual observations, with denser coverage in northern Italian basins (e.g., Po, Adige, Piave, Tagliamento) since 1924. Despite these inconsistencies, integration within a unified relational framework enhances the value of a largely underused data heritage. The experience gained through this project enabled the identification of both the limitations and the potential of Italy’s sediment monitoring system, providing operational guidance for methodological standardization, metadata improvement, and data harmonization at the national scale. The ISTD represents a concrete step toward establishing a shared sedimentological archive that supports scientific research, environmental management, and sustainable river basin planning.