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Designing Post-Fire Flood Protection Techniques for a Real Event in Central Greece

Angelos Alamanos ORCID
Independent Researcher, 10243 Berlin, Germany
George Papaioannou ORCID
Department of Forestry and Management of the Environment and Natural Resources, Democritus University of Thrace, 68200 Orestiada, Greece
George Varlas ORCID
Hellenic Centre for Marine Research, Institute of Marine Biological Resources and Inland Waters, 19013 Anavissos, Greece
Vassiliki Markogianni
Hellenic Centre for Marine Research, Institute of Marine Biological Resources and Inland Waters, 19013 Anavissos, Greece
Angelos Plataniotis
1. Sustainable Development Unit, Athena Research Center (RC), 15125 Athens, Greece; 2. Department of Economics, National and Kapodistrian University of Athens, 10559 Athens, Greece
Anastasios Papadopoulos ORCID
Hellenic Centre for Marine Research, Institute of Marine Biological Resources and Inland Waters, 19013 Anavissos, Greece
Elias Dimitriou ORCID
Hellenic Centre for Marine Research, Institute of Marine Biological Resources and Inland Waters, 19013 Anavissos, Greece
Phoebe Koundouri ORCID
1. Sustainable Development Unit, Athena Research Center (RC), 15125 Athens, Greece; 2. School of Economics and Research Laboratory on Socio-Economic and Environmental Sustainability, Athens University of Economics and Business, 10434 Athens, Greece; 3. Department of Technology, Management and Economics, Denmark Technical University (DTU), 2800 Kongens Lyngby, Denmark
Received: 25 June 2024
Published: 04 September 2024

Abstract

Wildfires pose a growing global danger for ecosystems and human activities. The degraded ecosystem functions of burnt sites, include, among others, shifts in hydrological processes, land cover, vegetation, and soil erosion, that make them more vulnerable to flood and extreme sediment transport risks. Several post-fire erosion and flood protection treatments (PFPs) have been developed to avoid and mitigate such consequences and risks. The Mediterranean region faces severe climate change challenges that are projected to escalate the wildfire and post-fire flood risks. However, there is limited research on the dynamics of post-fire flood risks and their mitigation through the design of the appropriate PFPs. This paper aims to cover this gap by simulating a real post-fire flash-flood event in Central Greece, and design the PFPs for this case study, considering their suitability and costs. An integrated framework was used to represent the flood under the baseline scenario: the storm conditions that caused the flood were simulated using the atmospheric model WRF-ARW; the burn extent, severity, and the flood extent were retrieved through remote sensing analyses; and a HEC-RAS hydraulic-hydrodynamic model was developed to simulate the flood event, applying the rain-on-grid technique. Several PFPs were assessed, and certain channel- and barrier-based PFPs were selected as the most suitable for the study area. The recommended PFPs were spatially represented within a geographic information system (GIS). Moreover, we present a detailed analysis of their expected costs. This study provides an interdisciplinary and transferable framework for understanding and enhancing the flood resilience of burnt sites.

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