Volume 11 Issue 1
Flood Hazard Management in Public Mountain Recreation Areas vs. Ungauged Fluvial Basins. Case Study of the Caldera de Taburiente National Park, Canary Islands (Spain)
Julio Garrote, Andrés Díez-Herrero, José M. Bodoque, María A. Perucha, Pablo L. Mayer and Mar Génova
1Department of Geodynamics, Complutense University of Madrid, E-28040 Madrid, Spain
2Geological Survey of Spain (IGME), Ríos Rosas 23, E-28003 Madrid, Spain
3Mining and Geological Engineering Department, University of Castilla-La Mancha, E-45071 Toledo, Spain
4hysical Geography and Environment Group, Institute of Oceanography and Global Change (IOCAG), University of Las Palmas de Gran Canaria, E-35003 Las Palmas de Gran Canaria, Spain
5Forest Engineering Technic School, Technic University of Madrid, E-28040 Madrid, Spain
*Author to whom correspondence should be addressed.
Abstract
Las Angustias River is an ungauged stream in the Caldera de Taburiente National Park (Spain), where frequent intense flash-flood events occur. The aim of this research is to analyze the flood hazard at the Playa de Taburiente. Based on the limited information available (short time-series of daily precipitation), a statistical frequency analysis of 24 h rainfall was completed and the precipitation results were transformed into surface runoff. To determine if the model underestimates the flows that are generated in the basin, the dendro-geomorphological information available was used to calibrate results. The results of the HMS model were significantly lower. At this point, both the rainfall data and the rainfall-runoff model were re-analyzed to maximize the rainfall intensity values and the runoff generated (increasing the CN value for the basin). For the 1997 flood event, a 1250 m3·s−1 flood minimizes the RMSE for the disturbed tree sample; this flow value also clearly exceeds any peak flow derived from the rainfall-runoff analysis. It is only when rainfall intensity and surface runoff are maximized that the peak flows obtained approximate those associated with dendro-geomorphological data. The results highlight the difficulties of flood hazard management in ungauged torrential basins in mountain recreational areas (such as National Parks). Thus, in the absence of flow records, when considering the maximum rainfall intensity scenario may be a useful and effective tool for flood risk management.
Keywords:ungauged basin; flood hazard; National Park; rainfall; dendro-geomorphology; hydraulic modeling