UPC-GITS (Grupo de Investigación en Transporte de Sedimentos) (www.gits.ws) is the second group of the Technical University of Catalonia (UPC) participating in IMPRINTS. It is a research group of the Department of Hydraulic, Maritime and Environmental Engineering at the UPC. UPC-GITS is the recognized research group 2005SGR00770 of the Generalitat de Catalunya. (Regional Government) and works in a wide range of topics of Fluvial Dynamics. The aim of the research is mainly related to sediment transport processes. For the last years the group has been involved in different projects focussed on debris flow characterization. The experience of debris morphology and dynamics description in the field (reconstruction of debris flows and flash flood events, by measuring the marks left by the flow and proceed to back analysis) is combined with two additional research lines involving experimental work in laboratory and development of numerical codes for the hyperconcentrated flow simulation. The group has built a Fluvial Morphodynamic Laboratory with a high capacity to study and solve experimental problems, sediment transport, flow through vegetation, contaminant diffusion convection problems and local scour analysis. Regarding numerical simulations, the group has developed numerical model in monophasic and biphasic flows of sediment and water in different concentrations in 1D and 2D, including low and high slope processes.
The GITS research in debris flow has supported by the Spanish Research and Technology Ministry (contract BTE2002-0375). The impact of FF in terms of flooding, sediment transport, erosion and damages in the territory is one of the topics of interest of GITS. The group is involved in the HYDRATE (contract GOCE 037024) EU project. A new line of research is recently developed in the MEDDMAN EU Project (part of the Interreg III B Medocc Programme), where the impacts of drought in mediterranean basins are analysed from the hydrologic point of view(application and calibration of long term hydrological models).

Dr. Allen Bateman Pinzón is Professor of Hydraulics at the Technical University of Catalonia (UPC) and the Director of GITS. He is specialist in numerical simulation, and he has developed hydraulic models to solve non-permanent, variable flows coupled to sediment transport equations. A second research line is the experimental work (physical, reduced models) on sediment transport and erosion in rivers. Dr. Bateman has been responsible of several private and public projects involving fluvial engineering and river training. Debris flow research has been the topic of the recent granted project BTE2002-0375 from the Spanish Research and Technology Ministry, and as a result, a 2D hyperconcentrated flow modelling software has been developed. The application of numerical simulation to real DF events in the mountain part of Catalonia is described in his recent publications.

Dr. Marcel Hürlimann is associate professor of Engineering Geology. His work focuses on landslide analysis (including debris flows, debris floods and flash floods) and susceptibility/hazard/risk assessment. Research is also carried out in other areas of activity such as analysis of rainfall thresholds for debris flows, numerical modelling, GIS-techniques, monitoring, laboratory and fieldwork. He has participated in 5 EU-projects and 4 national projects. In total, he has published more than 70 papers on different aspects of mass movements.
Vicente Medina is PhD student at the Technical University of Catalonia (UPC) and works as a research scientist in the field of numerical modelling applied to debris flow simulations. He is also interest in long term hydrologic modelling and the interaction of superficial and subterranean flows.

Selected Publications
2007.    Bateman, A., V. Medina, M. Hürlimann, and D. Velasco, 2007: Modelo bidimensional para simulación de flujos detríticos: FLATModel. Aplicación a una cuenca del Pirineo Catalán. Ingeniería Hidráulica en México, XXII, 5-20.
2003.    Hürlimann, M., J. Corominas, J. Moya, and R. Copons, 2003b: Debris-flow events in the Eastern Pyrenees. Preliminary study on initiation and propagation. In: Proceedings of 3rd Int. Conf. on Debris-Flow Hazards Mitigation, Davos (Switzerland), Millpress.
2003.    Hürlimann, M., D. Rickenmann, and C. Graf, 2003a: Field and monitoring data of debris-flow events in the Swiss Alps. Canadian Geotechnical Journal, 40, 161-175.
2006.    Hürlimann, M., R. Copons, and J. Altimir, 2006: Detailed debris flow hazard assessment in Andorra: A multidisciplinary approach. Geomorphology, 78, 359-372.
2008.    Hürlimann, M., D. Rickenmann, V. Medina, and A. Bateman, 2008: Evaluation of approaches to calculate debris-flows parameters for hazard assessment. Engineering Geology, In press.
2008.    Medina, V., M. Hürlimann, and A. Bateman, 2008: Application of FLATModel, a 2D finite volume code, to debris flows in the northeastern part of the Iberian Peninsula. Landslides, 5, 127-142.