Bucharest, 19-20 September 2016
Prut river basin
Meteo-Ro
http://imdroflood.meteoromania.ro/
Bucharest, 19-20 September 2016
Overview
•
•
•
•
•
•
History
General Characteristics
Observation networks
Specific Challenges
Preliminary Conclusions
Bibliography
Bucharest, 19-20 September 2016
History
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
Cucuteni
culture
pottery
Cucuteni
culture
goddess
•
•
The Prut River - known as the Pyretus or Porata (the name given by Scythes) - originates on the
eastern slope of Mount Hoverla, in the Carpathian Mountains in Ukraine and joins the Danube river
near Giurgiulești, East of Galați.
Cucuteni-Trypilian culture dominated the area between 6000 BC and 3500 BC.
In Antiquity the region was inhabited by Thracians/Dacians, Scythians, Sarmatians,Celts and
Bastarns .
Goths, Alans, Huns, Avars, Slavs,Bulgarians, Hungarians, Mongols and others crossed the Prut in
their westward and southward migrations from 1 st century AD up to 13th century AD.
Since the 14th century the region has been part of the Principality of Moldavia (inhabited by
Romanians).
In 1812 Russian empire took the whole area between Prut and Dnister.
In 1918, the local parliament voted for unification of Bessarabia (which included the Eastern part of
the Prut River basin) with the Kingdom of Romania.
In 1940, the USSR issued an ultimatum to Romania, demanding immediate cession of Bessarabia
and Northern Bukovina.
In 1941, Bessarabia and Bukovina were Romanian again from Summer 1941 till Spring 1944.
In the last 6 decades, most of Prut wetland and peat areas were transformed in
agriculture-dedicated land.
In 1976, the USSR and Romania have built a dam (47 m height), a reservoir lake (1 285 million m 3 )
and a hydropower plant (an installed power of 16 MW and an average production energy of 65
GWh/year) near the villages Stânca and Costeşti, so the periodic floods in the Prut meadow stopped
and water supply and energy have been made available for population and industry. However, as a
side effect, the sediment diminished/decreased causing soil degradation in the Prut meadow.
The Republic of Moldova became independent in 1991.
In 2008 flood event, caused by extreme upstream precipitation, Republic of Moldova and Romania
have operated the Stânca –Costeşti reservoir to avoid lost of human lives and large propriety
damages (Romanescu & Stoleriu, 2013).
Prut banks – 1876
The Illustrated London News, Issue 633, p. 32
Stânca-Costesti dam - present
Prut banks -1941
Bucharest, 19-20 September 2016
General Characteristics of the Prut River Basin
•
•
•
•
•
•
Total watershed area: 2 837 073 Ha
•
Crop: 2 230 152 Ha
•
Tree cover (tree cover with > 30 canopy density):
•
– 2000: 591 412 Ha
•
– 2014: 567 032 Ha
Shrub/grassland: 98 777 Ha
•
Wetland: 15 327 Ha
•
Urban: 11 785 Ha
Major dams: 5
Major ponds: 26
Mean annual temperature: 9 ºC
Mean annual precipitation amount: 550 mm
Mean annual discharge near the outlet: 93.8 m 3/s
Mean annual wild fire episodes: 552
Bucharest, 19-20 September 2016
Land-use
Source: Arino et al., 2012; http://water.globalforestwatch.org/
Bucharest, 19-20 September 2016
Romanian observation networks
Bucharest, 19-20 September 2016
Weather Surveillance Radar 98 Doppler (WSR-98D), in S band (wave length 10 cm).
Radius: 230 km.
Specific challenges for the Prut watershed
Source: Hansen et al., 2013; Gassert et al.,2014; http://water.globalforestwatch.org/
Bucharest, 19-20 September 2016
Bucharest, 19-20 September 2016
Preliminary conclusions
•
Climatic and hydrologic data coverage should be extended to upper river basin in
Ukraine and over Eastern areas in Republic of Moldova.
–
•
•
Operational experience at the largest reservoir (Stânca-Costesti) during last 4 decades
reveals the need of information from the precipitation monitoring from the upper river basin
in Ukraine in order to prevent and/or mitigate flood impacts on the Prut watershed.
Prut watershed has a relative low water stress under present climate (cf. global
assessment from Aqueduct project http://www.wri.org/our-work/project/aqueduct). A
more detailed assessment is needed.
However, the Prut watershed health is more likely to suffer as a result of exposure to
erosion, wild fires and deforestation (cf. global assessment from
http://water.globalforestwatch.org/). A more detailed assessment is needed.
–
–
–
–
High erosion deteriorates water quality and reduces reservoir capacity, increasing cost of
water treatment and capital expenses, and damaging safety of water supplies. High erosion
risk is usually linked to erodible soil, intense rainfall, steep topography, and conversion of
forest and other natural lands to pasture, cropland, and other human developments.
Soil degradation is another specific threat.
High intensity or large fires can result in significant increases in runoff, erosion, and tree
mortality, all of which can negatively impact water quality and flow regulation. Although the
effects are usually short-lived, long-term effects, magnitude, and persistence of downstream
effects are uncertain.
Changes in the landscape, such as deforestation, can threaten a watershed’s ability to
regulate water flows, control water quality, and provide other critical ecosystem services.
Bucharest, 19-20 September 2016
Thank you for your attention!
The Valley of Mid Prut
Photo credit: Alecu Reniţă
Preşedintele Mişcării Ecologiste din Moldova
Membru-corespondent al Academiei Naţionale de Ştiinţe Ecologice
Bucharest, 19-20 September 2016
Bibliography
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
Arino, Olivier, Jose Julio Ramos Perez, Vasileios Kalogirou, Sophie Bontemps, Pierre Defourny, and Eric Van
Bogaert. 2012. "Global Land Cover Map for 2009." European Space Agency and Université catholique de Louvain.
Gassert, F., M. Luck, M. Landis, P. Reig, and T. Shiao. 2014. “Aqueduct Global Maps 2.1: Constructing
Decision-Relevant Global Water Risk Indicators.” Working Paper. Washington, DC: World Resources Institute.
Available online at http://www.wri.org/publication/aqueduct-global-maps-21-indicators
Gleeson, T., Y. Wada, M.F. Bierkens, and L.P. van Beek. 2012. Water Balance of Global Aquifers Revealed by
Groundwater Footprint. http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v488/n7410/full/nature11295.html
Hansen, M. C., P. V. Potapov, R. Moore, M. Hancher, S. A. Turubanova, A. Tyukavina, D. Thau, S. V. Stehman, S. J.
Goetz, T. R. Loveland, A. Kommareddy, A. Egorov, L. Chini, C. O. Justice, and J. R. G. Townshend. 2013.
"High-resolution global maps of 21st-century forest cover change." Science 342 (6160):850–53. doi:
10.1126/science.1244693.
Luck, M., M. Landis, F. Gassert. 2015. “Aqueduct Water Stress Projections: Decadal Projections of Water Supply and
Demand Using CMIP5 GCMs.” Technical Note. Washington, D.C.: World Resources Institute. Available online at:
http://wri.org/publication/aqueduct-water-stress-projections
Romanescu, G., Stoleriu, C. and Romanescu, A.-M., 2011: Water reservoirs and the risk of accidental flood
occurrence. Case study: Stanca–Costesti reservoir and the historical floods of the Prut river in the period July–August
2008, Romania. Hydrol. Process., 25: 2056–2070. doi:10.1002/hyp.7957
Romanescu, G. & Stoleriu, C. Nat Hazards (2013) 69: 1351. doi:10.1007/s11069-012-0525-6
Romanescu, G. and Stoleriu, C. C.: Exceptional floods in the Prut basin, Romania, in the context of heavy rains in the
summer of 2010, Nat. Hazards Earth Syst. Sci. Discuss., doi:10.5194/nhess-2016-289, in review, 2016.
Corduneanu, F., Bucur, D., Cimpeanu, S.M. et al. Water Resources (2016) 43: 42. doi:10.1134/S0097807816010061