Assessment of flood-prone stripes within the Danube drainage area in the South-West Oltenia Development Region, Romania

The present paper deals with the hydrometeorological phenomena that affected important sectors of the Danube, at European level, during the last 10 years and with the dedicated European policy, especially the flood management policy of many countries of Europe, focusing on society's ability to co-exist with floods, rather than be protected from them. In this context, the exposed elements within the study area hold a poor coping capacity against extreme hydrometeorological events. The accentuated social and economic vulnerability enhances the overall flood risk. The observations were conducted on river sectors that are representative for south-western Romania, the case study areas being located within the piedmont (the Jirov stream-Gura Motrului settlement, on the Motru river) and plain (the Rast-Gighera sector, on the Danube river) areas. The aim of the survey was to decipher the hydrological mechanisms, the geomorphological response and the possibilities of prognosis and limitation of the flood risk phenomena. The study departs from the analysis of the natural background in GIS environment, followed by the determination of the hydrological parameters that influence the establishment of the flood-prone stripes (e.g., water levels corresponding to specific discharge values with different probability rates). The main objective consists in the identification of the flood-prone areas along two rivers (the Motru and the Danube) and their correlation with the recrudescence of extreme hydrological phenomena, taking into consideration the configuration of the floodplain as natural retention area and possible wetland.