Fragile Landscape: Impact and Consequences of May 2014 Flash-flood Disaster in the Aqaba Area, Southern Jordan

Characterising patterns of heavy precipitation events in the eastern Mediterranean using a weather radar and convection-permitting WRF simulations

“…Conversely, during Tropical Plumes, rainfall is widespread and can simultaneously cover most of the region with moderate intensities. Desert HPEs frequently result in large and sometimes devastating flash floods (e.g., Armon et al, 2018;Dayan and Morin, 2006;Farhan and Anbar, 2014;Kahana et al, 2002;Saaroni et al, 2014;Seager et al, 2014).…”

Flash Flood Risk Estimation of Wadi Yutum (Southern Jordan) Watershed Using GIS Based Morphometric Analysis and Remote Sensing Techniques

“…Often, urban expansion and development is conducted in complete ignorance of the potential threat of flash flooding and the associated sediment discharge. Nevertheless, scattered hydrological studies/reports on flash floods have been carried out for W. Yutum [3] [20]- [21] [28]- [31]. These studies confirm that the Aqaba area has been exposed to recurrent flash floods since the 1950s, where low magnitude (5 -7 year return periods), medium magnitude (20 -25 year return periods), and high magnitude (50 year return periods) floods have been recorded.…”

“…Furthermore, long-term hydro-meteorological data are not available. Therefore, due to difficulties in predicting flash floods, planning adjustment to flooding risk, emergency and evacuation plans are of high priority, where Aqaba city has been almost disrupted by a flash flood of low or medium magnitude every two years in the last past decade [20] [21]. Accordingly, the spatial distribution of land use categories, the expanding of residential areas across wadi floors, economic and life losses are expected to increase due to continuous exposure of assets and population to risk.…”

“…An increase in frequency and intensity of heavy rainfall, and probably certain effects of climatic change [22]- [24], will cause an increase in flash floods occurrences. The residential areas, the airport, the industrial zone, and the Aqaba-Amman highway (the most vital highway in Jordan) across Wadi Yutum, are all located in flood-prone areas on the apex, middle and toe parts of the alluvial fans of Wadi Yutum and other wadis to the north and south of Aqaba [21]. Such conditions are a particularly challenging task at present and will remain so in the future [8] [21].…”

“…The residential areas, the airport, the industrial zone, and the Aqaba-Amman highway (the most vital highway in Jordan) across Wadi Yutum, are all located in flood-prone areas on the apex, middle and toe parts of the alluvial fans of Wadi Yutum and other wadis to the north and south of Aqaba [21]. Such conditions are a particularly challenging task at present and will remain so in the future [8] [21]. Unfortunately, all previous plans for the Aqaba area [25]- [27] suffer from a prominent lack of appreciation of the morpho-hydrological setting of the bajada at the lower W. Araba including the W. Yutum watershed, and other wadis north and south of W. Yutum.…”