Overall Conclusion and Discussion - Response of Flood Events to Land Use and Climate Change - page 225

precipitation discharge and temperature was analyzed for both years. The
amount of precipitation for almost all months in 1977 was more than in 2008. In
general, precipitation shows a decreasing at the end of the period (1961-2009).
By investigating all achieved results from the time series analysis, it could be
concluded that: (a) the amount of precipitation for almost all months in 1977
was more than in 2008. In general, precipitation shows a decreasing trend at the
end of the period (1961-2009); (b) the temperature for almost all months in
2008 shows an increase from 0 to 4 C and; (c) maximum discharge in 2008 was
more than in 1977.
• Flood 2008 occurred with a decreasing amount of rainfall comparing to 1977,
therefore, as an overall conclusion, it is assumed that the land use change and
melting of snow are acceptable reason for the 2008 flood.
• The result of daily analysis for the time series (including maximum snow depth,
maximum discharge, precipitation and maximum temperature) showed that
during the summer, the rate of snowmelt has a direct impact on the rivers peak
discharge. In both flood events of 1957 and 2008, the rate of snowmelt was
higher than the average in other years.
• The non-homogenous precipitation time series at other investigated stations may
be affected by multiple changes in the location of the gauge and may be one
change of instrumentation.

Objective (e):

• From the results, it was realized that urban areas increased (*+140 %) and
arable land showed a decreasing trend (*-54 %) from 1956 to 2004. Forests
also represent an increasing trend (*12 %), inversely due to channelization and
human activity, which caused the channel to decrease (*-37 %) over time.
• No inundation occurred when the 1957 flood was simulated for current river
morphology, due to reconstruction and increasing height of the dyke as a con-
structive human activity in Barcelonnette City.

7.2 Discussion

According to all the achieved results of this study in the Barcelonnette area, this
section attempts to review and discuss the hypotheses as pre-research predictions
as follows:

Hypotheses (a): Interpolation techniques are suitable tools to control the quality of digital

elevation model.