Abstract. - The Lake of Stânca-Costeşti and its role in flood mitigation on the River Prut. Abstract: In the summer of 2008 the Prut River registered the historic flow of 7140 m3/s (the highest river flow to be registered on all Romanian rivers at that time) as it entered the country. The great value is due to the intense precipitations thet fell over the territory of Ucraine and Romania. The high flow of the upper - river Prut determined the accumulation of a great quantity of water in the Lake of Stânca-Costeşti. Due to the precipitations covering even the lower part of the Prut basin, the water level reached the flood limit while the lake reached its maximum capacity of 0.1% esurience. Setting free some of the water quantity detained by the lake would have caused severe flooding downstream, while keeping keeping the lake filed maximum capacity would have eventually determined the breaking of the dam and therefore catastrophic floods in the settlements situated downstream. On account of controlled river flow that exceeded the average situation, the flooding of the area downstream from Stânca-Costeşti lasted until the end of August. The greatest damage was recorded upstream the dam both in the localities of Rădăuţ Prut and Baranca-Hudeşti, but also in the lake area due to the remuu phenomena.
Key-words: flood mitigation, lake, maximim capacity, Prut, management