El Bayadh city against flash floods: case study

ABSTRACT

The increasing flash floods phenomenon in arid and semi-arid regions of Algeria has led to a search for practical and feasible solutions. The use of mapping to delineate floodplain areas has become one of the solutions to mitigate this phenomenon. El Bayadh city has experienced a catastrophic flood on 1 October 2011 causing significant human and material damage. The present study aims to produce a flood hazard map of El Bayadh city based on rainfall amounts. Four precipitation values were proposed 40, 60, 80, and 100 mm, through which four flooded areas were obtained. This flood hazard map proves its effectiveness when used in conjunction with the weather warnings issued by the National Office of Meteorology. In this work, a hydrological study was done, and ArcGIS and HEC-RAS software were used.

KEYWORDS:

• El Bayadh
• flash floods
• wadi Deffa
• hazard map
• HEC-RAS

Acknowledgements

The authors would like to express their deepest gratitude to El Bayadh municipality (APC), National Meteorological Office (ONM), the directorate of Civil Protection (DPC) for their data provision, and for technical support.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Supplementary material

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