Rising peak and flooding of the Ubangi River in 2019 at Bangui, Central African Republic

This paper examines the Ubangi River's rising peak in October-November 2019 and the flooding impact on its former bed at Bangui. From 19 October to 4 November 2019, discharge increased from 8500 to 12 400 m3.s-1, representing a daily average discharge of 244 m3.s-1. The Qmaxi reached 12 400 m3.s-1 on 4 November 2019, for a rating of 750 cm, showing different frequencies: 10 years (1911-2019), 70 years (1971-2019), and 110 years (1981-2019) with GEV and lognormal distributions, and 8 , 30 and 40 years with the Gumbel distribution. The 2019 Qmaxi occurrence in a hydroclimatically declining context represents rare to very rare frequencies, while it is of weak magnitude compared to the 1999 and 1961 risings. So, floods caused enormous damage due to land use change rather than flood peak. Floods' spatialization in Bangui reveals urban areas periodically vulnerable to flood phenomena, giving an opportunity for integrated flood management for mitigation along the Ubangi River.