JOURNAL OF THE FACULTY OF ENGINEERING AND ARCHITECTURE OF GAZI UNIVERSITY, vol.36, no.3, pp.1670-1685, 2021 (SCI-Expanded)
In this study, the flash flood potential of the Eastern Mediterranean Basin was examined by using morphometric analysis. Basin was divided into 8 main, with 775 sub-basins in total, and twelve morphometric parameters were computed for each sub-basin. Drainage density, Ro coefficient and bifurcation, texture, elongation and circulatory ratios were determined to be used in classifying sub-basins according to their flash flood potential by using principal component analysis. The sub-basins are divided into five categories in terms of their flash flood potential as very high, high, medium, low and very low. The flash flood potential categories of the sub-basins determined from the analysis were then compared with the recorded flood events for each eight main sub-basin and the reliability and applicability of the approach was thus tested. It was noted that successful results were achieved in main sub-basins with large drainage areas whereas in main sub-basins with small drainage areas, floods were generally experienced in sub-basins with low flash flood potential, and no floods occurred in sub-basins that are in high risk category according to the records. The reason for these results is thought to be due to the determination of the components evaluated using all 775 sub-basins of the Eastern Mediterranean Basin in the principal component analysis and thus the effective parameters in the small sub-basins with structural differences might have lost their effect when evaluated throughout the whole basin. To improve the results obtained from the study, it is believed that besides morphometric parameters, factors which directly affect the rainfall-runoff relationship such as vegetation cover, land use, basin geology and water use in the basin should be taken into consideration.