Hydrometeorological hazards assessment of some basins in Southwestern Sinai area, Egypt

Abstract

The assessment of hydrometeorological hazards in the mountainous area of Southwestern Sinai area (SWSA) necessitates reliable and accurate information about natural hazards, especially flash floods. Flash floods are the main dangerous hazards that threaten lives and any sustainable development planning in and around the rugged topography areas. The SWSA receives occasional heavy rainstorms every two or four years, triggering destructive floods that runoff towards the Gulf of Suez. The present study aims to extract, evaluate, integrate and map the potential flash flood hazards by applying remote sensing, GIS tools and by statistically analyzing the geomorphometric parameters. Moreover, assessing the flash flood hazard risk ranks was carried for the three main basins (W. Baba, W. Sidri, and W. Nukhul). The drainage networks and basins were extracted from DEM then, delineated into seventy-two sub-basins and then the morphometric parameters of these sub-basins were estimated. The analysis of the various morphometric parameters of the three main basins shows that they have different effects on flash flood hazards. Depending on the statistical analysis of the commutative weights of the important geomorphometric parameters and GIS functions; the studied basins were categorized into three risk ranks; namely: high, moderate and low flash flood risk. The integration of the different controlling parameters revealed that the zones of high flash flood hazard risk are characterized by the low probability of groundwater recharge which should be put into consideration to help the decision makers avoid risks which are considered to be one of the most dangerous obstacles to the sustainable development of the study area.