Catastrophic Floods – Possible Contribution of Groundwater due to Flash Reconstruction of the Rock Mass 3D-Cracknet under Seismic Factors

Abstract

We studied the interaction of surface water and groundwater at the origin and development of catastrophic floods. Intense atmospheric precipitation is traditionally considered as the main factor of their occurrence. At the same time, we discuss the role of seismic processes as a factor that potentially influences on the occurrence of catastrophic floods. We made an analysis of the observed natural events, which confirm the impact of seismic activity on the state of groundwater and, therefore, on surface water. We also suggested an original approach to forecast the catastrophic floods on the basis of the analysis of seismic activity in respect of specific hydrological events that took place in 2013-2014.

Global and Regional Aspects for Genesis of Catastrophic Floods: The Problems of Forecasting and Estimation for Mass and Water Balance (Surface Water and Groundwater Contribution)

“…On the other hand, it is a large-scale percolation, defined by the fracturing of the Earth's crust. Without going into details of the forming of a river basin's geological structure [11,14], we highlight the fracturing of the Earth'scrust which makes the intense interaction of surface water and groundwater possible. The infiltration component of the soil permeability (and deeper rock layers) is characterized by a significantly slower vertical and lateral movement of water masses.…”

“…The key point of the proposed approach is the identification of the conditions of earthquake influence on the river basin functioning. The possible role of the preceding seismic activity for some certain disastrous floods of 2013-2017 is analyzed in [10,11]. These issues have not been paid enough attention to so far.…”

“…In our hypothesis, the principal part of a possible groundwater exit to the land surface is related to the crack-net system state in the Earth's crust (including deep layers) being a natural water transportation system. The reasons for that are, first, the pressure field variation for groundwater basin and, second, the modification of the crack-net itself by different factors occurring both suddenly (e.g., may be probably associated with the Krymsk city flash flood event, July 6-7, 2012, Russia) and smoothly (e.g., is hypothetically associated with the Amur River flood event, August to September 2013, Russia/China)) [4, 10,11]. Such reconstruction of a 3D crack-net water system under different external influences, significant even in any local crack section and resulting consequently in variation of the water flow pressure distribution, is a principal item for the presented approach.…”

2015 Disastrous Floods in Louisiana, USA, and Assam, India: Groundwater Impact on the Water Balance Estimation

“…Today the important role of groundwater does not raise any doubts: groundwater is one of the main parts of the river basin system alongside precipitation and surface water [1,2], and all the parts are closely interconnected [3,4]. Groundwater is the source of fresh water, and the state of groundwater is used even to predict earthquakes [5].…”