ASSESSMENT OF THE FLOODS POTENTIAL IN JIU RIVER CATCHMENT

Abstract

The floods are extreme hydrological events that require rigorous analysis to achieve structural and non – structural measures to mitigate their risk. This paper aims to analyze the floods’ potential in the Jiu River Catchment (the catchment area has 10131 km²). The main geographical factors which are favoring the floods production are the climatic conditions and the morphometric factors. The monthly and annual maximum discharge recorded at 18 hydrometric stations, have been analyzed for the interval 1982 – 2012. In this paper the frequency of the annual floods was determined and the features of 180 floods have been estimated. The used methods are statistical analysis and spatial analysis using GIS. The peak discharges recorded at the studied hydrometric station ranged from 34.2 m³/s to 1220 m³/s. These exceeded the estimated values of the maximum discharge with the probabilities of 1% (Broşteni, Teleşti and Corcova hydrometric stations), 3% (Sadu, Runcu, Stolojani, Târmigani, Strehaia and Breasta hydrometric stations), 5% (Iscroni, Rovinari, Podari, Zăval, Turburea and Turceni hydrometric stations) and 10% (Filiaşi, Răcari and Celei hydrometric stations). The annual floods occurred predominantly in the spring and are the result of the abundant rainfall associated with snowmelt.

Keywords

• Jiu River Catchment
• monthly and annual discharge
• floods
• frequency
• statistics