Romulus COSTACHE¹, Remus PRĂVĂLIE², Iulian MITOF¹ & Cristian POPESCU^1
1Bucharest University, Faculty of Geography, 1 Nicolae Bălcescu str., Romania; e-mail: romuluscostache2000@yahoo.com, iulian.mitof@yahoo.com, cristian_popescu18@yahoo.com
²Bucharest University, Faculty of Geography, Center for Coastal Research and Environmental Protection, Romania;
e-mail: pravalie_remus@yahoo.com

FLOOD VULNERABILITY ASSESSMENT IN THE LOW SECTOR OF SĂRĂȚEL CATCHMENT. CASE STUDY: JOSENI VILLAGE

Full text

The studies regarding hydrological risk phenomena hold a great practical importance, as this type of natural hazards produces considerable damages on society. The present paper aims to analyze the occurrence potential of hydrological risk phenomena (floods) in the Sărățel catchment, which is situated in the central south-eastern part of Romania, and the structural vulnerability in a highly exposed village, Joseni. The first part of the paper consisted in calculating and spatially modeling the Flash Potential Index (FPI) in GIS environment, by summing up several key geographical factors favoring catchment floods genesis. Subsequently, the critical areas – with a high potential of flood occurrence (5^th class of FPI) – were identified; their highest frequency was observed along the floodplains of the main valleys. Based on these critical areas, the structural vulnerability was assessed by considering the case study of Joseni village, situated in the inferior sector of the Sărățel catchment, which has a high susceptibility to floods. This step required the hydraulic modeling software HEC-RAS 4.1, by means of which the flood-prone area was estimated for Joseni village cross-section of Sărățel River, according to flood peak discharges of different exceedance probabilities (1%, 2%, 5%, 10%). The hydraulic modeling resulted in indicating that ~ 100 dwellings would be affected in case of a 10-year flood (10%), while a discharge with an exceedance probability of 1% (100-year flood) would affect ~ 120 dwellings.