Theoretical Background - Response of Flood Events to Land Use and Climate Change - page 42

In some other researches negative trend in annual precipitation was found in the
east of Europe. IPCC [ 38 - 40 ] also reported that there was a 10-40 % increasing
trend in precipitation in the t century in northern Europe but, on the other hand,
there was up to a 20 % decreasing trend in the southern part of Europe. Apart from
climatic factors, another significant reason, for increasing flood hazards can be
related to non-climatic anthropogenic factors: Changes in socioeconomic systems
include land-use changes such as deforestation, urbanization, elimination of
floodplains area, as well as river regularizations which leads to reducing of infil-
tration capacity and increasing of runoff coefficient. In recent decades, the scientific
investigation shows that a lot of inundation has occurred in Europe causing loss of
human lives and financial damages which have been aggravated, in several cases,
by the intense urbanization of flood-prone areas.
For Barcelonnette area, the effect of climate change on landslide and slop
stability using downscaling methods was investigated by some researchers. The
general results were higher temperatures in summer, more rainy winters and
spring, drier summers with decreasing precipitation, and a decrease in soil water
content. In terms of land-use change, many authors have addressed in their
investigations to deforestation in the floodplains of the rivers in south-eastern
France in the late eighteenth and nineteenth centuries ([ 122 ]. In contrast with the
vegetation explosion of the early twentieth century, changes were observed over
shorter time periods and in smaller areas, in the riparian forest active channel
contacts. Bravard [ 123 ] realized that anthropogenic factors played a major part in
initiating active channel restriction at the turn of the century, with climate change
as a secondary factor in Barcelonnette area.
In the next chapter, the methodology applied in this research will be explained
in details.
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