Results - Response of Flood Events to Land Use and Climate Change - page 218

was considered in the study area, including: (1) DEM scenario—the model was run
with different DEM resolutions to understand how the grid resolution of a DEM
affects the flood characteristics when simulated by a 1D and 1D-2D flood models;
(2) river changes scenario—the aim was to evaluate river change scenarios in order
to know how river channel changes affect the flood, using different profiles and
different discharge values; (3) dyke failure scenario—the major aspect was real-
izing the possible effects of dyke failure before a severe flood phenomenon and
finally (4) model scenario—was used to compare two different hydrological
models including HEC-RAS (1D) and SOBEK (1D-2D), in order to know what
are the advantages (or strengths) and disadvantages (or weaknesses) of these
models. In the last part of the hydrodynamic simulation, the probability distribu-
tion and the return period were analyzed.
Climate change is one of the most important triggering factors for a flood event.
The historical trend analysis of hydrological and meteorological series is important
and even more relevant when considering the regional effects of global climate
change. Therefore, to detect climate change and analyze the climatic parameters,
any probable abrupt points and trend estimations in the time series of climato-
logical and hydrological parameters using statistical methods were explored. The
overall conclusion from this section revealed that there is an increasing trend in
temperature time series and an inversely decreasing trend in precipitation time
series obtained from recorded data in the stations located in the Barcelonnette
basin. The distribution of discharge in the channel was normal and no statistically
significant trend was distinguished in flow discharge at the Barcelonnette station.
Additionally, to detect the land use changes from 1956 to 2004, first the land
use maps were digitized using GIS techniques based on the available aerial photos.
Then, the results were analyzed statistically. From the results, it was realized that
the urban areas increased about *+140 % and arable land showed a decreasing
trend (*-54 %) from the past until the present. Results over forest areas also
represented an increasing trend (*12 %), inversely due to channelization and the
decreasing human activity in the channel (*-37 %) over time.
To successfully provide scientific feedback on the relationship between climate
change, land use change, and flood events in the Barcelonnette area, all achieved
results were reviewed and the overall conclusion and final discussion is presented
in the Chap. 7 .

References

1. Bhattacharya N (2010) Flood risk assessment in Barcelonnette, France, M.Sc. Thesis,
International Institute for Geo-information Science and Earth Observation (ITC), Twente
University, Enschede, The Netherlands
2. Weber D (1994) Research into earth movements in the Barcelonnette basin. In: Casale R,
Fantechi R, Flageollet JC (eds) Temporal occurrence and forecasting of landslides in the
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pp 321-336