Developing models and envelope curves for extreme floods in the Saudi Arabia arid environment

Forecasting and monitoring extreme floods in arid regions like Saudi Arabia (SA) are a big challenge for engineers and hydrologists. It is difficult to derive reliable flood estimates at any site without adequate flood measurements. Therefore, envelope curves were developed for reliable estimates of...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Natural hazards (Dordrecht) 2018-11, Vol.94 (2), p.801-817
Main Authors: Ewea, Hatem A., Al-Amri, Nassir S., Dawoud, Mohamed A., Elfeki, Amro M.
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Arid environments
Arid regions
Arid zones
Basins
Civil Engineering
Coefficients
Earth and Environmental Science
Earth Sciences
Envelope curves
Environmental Management
Environmental monitoring
Flood control
Flood forecasting
Flood frequency
Flood management
Flood protection
Floods
Frequency analysis
Geophysics/Geodesy
Geotechnical Engineering & Applied Earth Sciences
Hydraulic structures
Hydrogeology
Hydrologic models
Hydrologists
Hydrology
Natural Hazards
Original Paper
Regional analysis
Regional development
Regions
Relaying
Runoff
Wadis
Watersheds
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Summary:Forecasting and monitoring extreme floods in arid regions like Saudi Arabia (SA) are a big challenge for engineers and hydrologists. It is difficult to derive reliable flood estimates at any site without adequate flood measurements. Therefore, envelope curves were developed for reliable estimates of flood peaks. Relaying on recorded flood events in SA, Francou–Rodier approach is used to develop the Regional Maximum Flood (RMF) for some wadis and for SA as a whole. A total of 3121 flood events in 32 arid basins of sizes varying from 99 to more than 4500 km 2 are collected and analyzed. Results show that established regional coefficients ( K ) range between 2.76 and 5.5. The RMF formula for the Saudi regions is Q  = 251 A 0.45 . The flood-frequency analysis showed that the Log-Pearson Type III is best. The extreme observed floods for the envelope curve for K  = 5.5 accommodate floods of recurrence interval ranging between 1000 and 100,000 years. The study results provide more realistic runoff peaks for a design of flood protection works for SA watersheds and for the similar environment. Consequently, it is recommended to use the developed envelope curves and models for efficient, safe and precise hydraulic structures design in SA.
ISSN:0921-030X
1573-0840
DOI:10.1007/s11069-018-3421-x