Flooding in Peloponnese, Greece: a contribution to flood hazard assessment

Abstract

Flooding is one of the most important types of disasters in southern Greece with many victims and extended damages over the last century. The increase in population together with the augmented pressure for urban expansion has increased flood risk during the last decades considerably across southern Europe. Peloponnese is not an exception in this regime, recording a significant amount of flood events and casualties. In this work, a catalogue of flooding phenomena during the period 1896-2010 in Peloponnese has been compiled based on numerous sources. Based on this record the temporal and spatial distribution of flood events and victims was examined. In total, 102 events were identified, causing 57 human casualties and inflicting extensive damage across the study area. Results showed seasonality patterns with more events clustering in November. They also showed that urban and coastal environments tend to present higher flood recurrence rates than mountainous and rural areas. An increasing trend in reported flood event numbers and casualties during the last decades was discovered. Moreover, spatial patterns were identified highlighting areas with higher flood recurrence rates across the region studied.