Scholarly record

ANALYSIS OF THE FLOODS RISK IN THE PERIPHERAL LOCALITIES FROM THE NORTH OF THE DANUBE DELTA USING GIS TECHNOLOGIES

Alexandru Bănescu

Abstract

The floods are extreme hydro_meteorological phenomena and are more and more common along the rivers. The climate change in the recent years has negatively influenced the way in which the classical weather phenomena have become a danger to communities, infrastructure and environment. The target area of this study is the northern part of the Danube Delta, where three localities prone to flood risk are analyzed - Figure 1. The high water levels on the Danube at certain times of the year may pose a great danger to these localities, which are all located along the Chilia branch. The present work analyzes which are the critical/vulnerable areas of the localities in case that the level of the river far exceeds historical limits. The paper also analyzes the geodeclivity of the land. This can facilitate the faster flow of the flood waters, causing major damage to buildings, communications infrastructure, damage to agricultural areas and socioeconomic activities. The results of this study can be also very useful to the local authorities. This concerns especially the digital maps, which are based on information from the digital terrain model (DTM). The information processing is carried out in specialized programs using GIS (Geographic Information System) technologies. The GIS methods used have created an overview of each locality where there are easily identified areas or plots that could be flooded at a strong flash flood. Knowing these critical/vulnerable areas it can be a very important issue, especially in the case of the violent manifestations of the weather, in a short time window and, on relatively large areas of the land. They can provoke, in the medium and long term, loss of human lives, material damages and environmental degradation. Moreover, the excess of rainfall from upstream leads to the possibility of production the flooding with rapid and devastating effects along the Danube's inner and middle course. Finally, we can point out that the use of the GIS technology is an important tool in the analysis of water resources for assessing the flood risk areas.

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DOI resolver: doi.org/10.5593/sgem2019/2.2/s11.089

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