Study Area - Response of Flood Events to Land Use and Climate Change - page 99

Chapter 4
Study Area
4.1 Introduction
This chapter provides a description of the Barcelonnette area and the Ubaye River.
The climatic conditions, the type of land use, geology, and soil characteristics are
also described in this chapter, in order to clarify the study area and to better
understand the problem statements.
4.2 Barcelonnette Area
This study focuses on the floodplain of the Ubaye River in the Barcelonnette
(Barciloneta/Barcilona in Occitan) area, which is located in the Alpes-de-Haute-
Provence, Southeast of France. The area is divided into four subbasins of
Barcelonnette, Saint-Pons, Les Thuiles, and Uvernet-Fours, which are parts of the
whole Ubaye catchment. The reason for choosing this area as a case study was
because of the available hydrologic data at the Barcelonnette station, which were
defined as boundary conditions of hydrodynamic models as inlet input data. For the
upper part of the whole catchment there is not enough data, such as discharge data.
The floodplain extends over an area of 93 km 2 with a length of 14 km and a maximum
width of 9 km. It lies at an elevation of 1132 m (3717 ft) between latitude of 44 19'
30''N to 44 27' 00''N and longitude of 6 33' 00''E to 6 40' 00''E (Fig. 4.1 ).