THE EFFECT OF THE CATASTROPHIC INUNDATIONS FROM SIRET RIVER’S LOWER BASIN (ROMANIA) FROM JULY 2006 IN THE CONTEXT OF THE GLOBAL CLIMATIC CHANGE
GH. ROMANESCU
ABSTRACT. - The effect of the catastrophic inundations from Siret river’s lower basin (Romania) from july 2006 in the context of the global climatic change. The Siret River flows from the Wooded Carpathians (Ukraine) and on the Romanian territory it has a length of 559 km. Siret River’s discharge is the highest of all internal rivers of Romania (210 m3/s at the river mouth) and this is caused by the fact that most of the tributaries come from the mountain sector (the Eastern Carpathians). In the summer of 2005, in the Siret drainage basin have occurred the most powerful floods ever, with important negative effects on the country’s economy. If the river’s multianuale discharge is 210 m3/s, the maximum discharge registered on 16.07.2005 was of 4650 m3/s at Lungoci. The main cause of these events is the deforestation of the small watersheds from the mountainous sector of the Vrancea, Bacau and Neamt counties. The surface affected by floods was of 58323.936 ha, among which: 34142.349 ha (58.54%) arable land; 6,697.486 ha (11.48%); orchards and wine-growing plantations 1,863.698 ha (3.20%); built areas 2,866.313 ha (4.91%); forests 4,915.985 ha (8.43%); waters 2,081.047 ha (3.57%); and unproductive land 5,757.058 ha (9.87%). Along the material losses (over 10,000 houses) have been registered 24 human deaths, as well as thousands of domestic animals (the value of the losses exceeds too million Euro). The estimation has been conducted using LANDSAT TM 2003 images and the FAO-LCCS classification methodology, in the ASR-CRUTA remote sensing laboratory, with the images offered after activating the International CHARTER (Call ID-98).