Study of floods on the rivers of the Kaliningrad region at the beginning of 2020 in the absence of snow cover and ice

Abstract

To develop measures for engineering protection of territories from flooding, it is necessary to identify spatiotemporal patterns in the formation of floods, since they are the cause of devastating floods in recent years. The paper presents the results of an analysis of flood phenomena on the rivers of the Kaliningrad region at the beginning of 2020. An array of observational data on daily water flows in rivers was processed, and the main components of the water balance of river basins were assessed by month (amount of precipitation, evaporation layer, monthly river flow layer, change in basin moisture reserves). It was found that the greatest amount of runoff was in February, while the highest amount of precipitation was in June; the highest runoff coefficient was in March and February (0.41), and in June it was only 0.03. Presumably, the main reasons for such phenomena are the distribution of the evaporation layer within the year and a decrease in the permeability of the upper soil layer for precipitation at low temperatures.