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Large wood transport as significant influence on flood risk in a mountain village

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Abstract

An important issue that is not considered in most flood risk assessments in mountain villages in Spain is the transport of solids associated with the flood flow, in this case, large wood transport. The transport and deposition of this wood in urban areas may be a potentially worse hazard than the flood flow itself. Despite its importance, large wood is a key ecological element in rivers, so removing it could be an unsuccessful approach. Therefore, efforts are needed in the better understanding of wood transport and deposition in streams. To analyse this process, scenario-based 2D hydrodynamic flood modelling was carried out. Since flood risk assessment has considerable intrinsic uncertainty, probabilistic thinking was complemented by possibilistic thinking, considering worst-case scenarios. This procedure obtained a probabilistic flood map for a 500-year return period. Then, a series of scenarios was built based on wood budget to simulate wood transport and deposition. Results allowed us to identify the main infrastructures sensitive to the passing of large wood and simulate the consequences of their blockage due to wood. The potential damage was estimated as well as the preliminary social vulnerability for all scenarios (with and without wood transport). This work shows that wood transport and deposition during flooding may increase potential damage at critical stream configurations (bridges) by up to 50 % and the number of potentially exposed people nearby these areas by up to 35 %.

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Acknowledgments

This work was funded by CICYT MAS Dendro-Avenidas project (CGL 2010-19274) and the Geological Survey of Spain (IGME). We are grateful to the Confederación Hidrográfica del Tajo and Meteorological Agency (AEMET) for having provided meteorological data; the Junta de Castilla y León in Ávila, Ayuntamiento de Arenas de San Pedro (particularly to Nuria Blázquez, Gloria Suárez and Sixto Díaz) for their collaboration. Special mention to Martí Sánchez-Juni (UPC) for his collaboration; and to Ignacio Gutiérrez, Luis Fernández and Luis Barca for their assistance with the topographical survey.

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  1. V. Ruiz-Villanueva

    Present address: Dendrolab.ch, Institute of Geological Sciences, University of Bern, Bern, Switzerland

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  1. Geological Survey of Spain (IGME), Rios Rosas 23, 28003, Madrid, Spain

    V. Ruiz-Villanueva, J. M. Bodoque, A. Díez-Herrero & E. Bladé

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Ruiz-Villanueva, V., Bodoque, J.M., Díez-Herrero, A. et al. Large wood transport as significant influence on flood risk in a mountain village. Nat Hazards 74, 967–987 (2014). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11069-014-1222-4

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