Siret river basin planning (Romania) and the role of wetlands in diminishing the floods

Abstract

The Siret river flows from the wooded Carpathians (Ukraine) and on the Romanian territory it has a length of 559km, from its entrance into the country till its mouth into the Danube. Practically, it is the river basin with the highest hydro-energetic potential and with the greatest fresh water supply in Romania. The total theoretical water resource in the Siret river space represents 6,868 million m 3 /year, which is above the average for Romania. In order to ensure the water sources for different use and to diminish the high floods which are more numerous and stronger, 31 accumulations have been built, with a volume exceeding 1,206.12 mln.m 3 . In 2005 the Siret recorded a historical flow with values between 5,000-5,500 m 3 /s, representing the highest flow on the interior rivers in Romania. Unfortunately, in the last 50 years, a great part of the large wetlands in this river basin have been drained, changing their destination and therefore, changing their role in diminishing floods, in recharging the aquifers and in representing a habitat for different species. In order to protect the human settlements in different regions, 570.2 km of rivers undertook regulation actions and 357.7 km of dams were built. Due to the torrential character of most of the rivers in the Siret basin, water consumption appeared and developed from simple water use to the great complex accumulations. In reality, the great reservoirs and the preserved wetlands along the main course or along other tributaries have diminished a part of the high floods produced in the last years.

Use of the 3-D scanner in mapping and monitoring the dynamic degradation of soils: case study of the Cucuteni-Baiceni Gully on the Moldavian Plateau (Romania)

“…In this case, the withdrawal is about 10 m. The average of 7.5 m per year is explained by the high friability of the rock, high slope and large amount of precipitation during the winter of 2009. In 2008-2009, when precipitation was within the normal intervals, erosion gullies amounted to values below 1 m per year. As the average values were exceeded, especially during increased frequency and intensity of rainfall values over 20-50 mm/24 h, erosion increased exponentially.…”

“…A landscape including the Carpathians and the Danube characterizes part of the great stage of hilly lands . It has a total area of 25 000 km 2 , over 10 % of the territory (Romanescu, 2009;Romanescu and Nistor, 2011;Romanescu et al, 2011a,b).…”

A Regionalization Method of Flow Duration Curve for Estimating Streamflow in Ungauged Catchments.

“…The climate in this area is a temperate one, with continental influences. The torrential character of the rivers in the Siret river basin can be amplified by the human interventions in the last years, especially by the massive deforestation in the Carpathians (Romanescu, 2009). …”

A Comparative Analysis of Exceptional Flood Events in the Context of Heavy Rains in the Summer of 2010: Siret Basin (NE Romania) Case Study

“…The largest catchment basin in the Romanian territory, the Siret catchment basin, comprises the Siret River [2,4], and the mountains and plateaus in the catchment area have showed different patterns of precipitation [31]. At the same time, the Siret catchment basin comprises the highest number of dams in Romania [33].…”

“…From this perspective, the historic floods, or those that produced important material damage or human losses, are worth underscoring [17][18][19][20][21][22][23][24][25][26][27][28][29][30]. The recent catastrophic floods on the Romanian territory-mostly in the east (Moldova region) [3][4][5][6][7]-motivated scientists to pen scientific works that also dealt with the issue of heavy rains [31][32][33].…”