Application of GIS Technologies to Assess Hydrological and Environmental Safety of the Selenga River Basin

Abstract

AbstractThe Selenga River provided more than 50% of the total water inflow to the Baikal Lake, and its regime can substantially impact the unique lake ecosystem. In this study, we consider the features of development and content of the web-GIS “Hydrological and environmental safety in the territory of the Selenga river basin”. The main purpose of the GIS development is to integrate, display and analyze various spatial data on climatic conditions, hydrological regime, hazardous hydrological events and environmental impact in the Selenga River basin. The GIS is developed as publicly available web application based on open-source software. The GIS structure includes three main thematic sections, which characterize climatic and hydrological conditions, hazardous hydrological events, as well as their negative impact on landscapes, settlements and infrastructure within the basin. The maps of average and extreme climatic characteristics and their changes are created based on WorldClim and GHCN-Daily data, for the period 1961 – present. The observed changes in climatic characteristics are shortly discussed. Hydrological data are obtained from 87 gauges for the period 1945 – present. The database of hazardous hydrological events so far includes the data only for Russian part of the basin and the period 2001–2020 (92 point reports). Most of them are associated with rain floods. The information on meteorological drivers of flood events is also provided in the database.KeywordsSelenga River basinHydrological and environmental safetyHazardous hydrological eventsGIS structure and contentDatabaseOnline web map service