The Impact of Depopulation on Reduction of the Peaks of Torrential Floods in Selected Watersheds of the Southeastern Serbia

Abstract

The processes of emigration, depopulation and deagrarization in hilly-mountainous border areas in Serbia have intensified in last several decades. These processes have resulted in land use changes which means that anthropogenic impact on environment has diminished so the agriculture areas have decreased and have made room to the other land use types. These changes should entail lower soil erosion, slower generation of surface runoff during rainfall episode as well as reduction of the peak discharges and destructiveness of a torrential flood event. In this paper, we quantified the influence of land use changes on surface runoff indicators for several watersheds in the Southeastern Serbia. The greatest reduction of the curve number (CNR) happened in the Toplodolska watershed (2.34), then the Korbevačka (1.98) and the Dojkinačka (1.60) watersheds. The decrease of maximal discharge of 100-year return period is presented on example of a small watershed of the Ravna reka and it equals to 11%. Alongside these spontaneous positive anthropogenic impact on lowering the peaks of torrential floods, there should be a set of other preventive measures implemented.