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Natural Hazards in Saudi Arabia

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Natural Hazards in Saudi Arabia Comp. by: K.VENKATESAN Stage: Proof Chapter No.: 18 Title Name: Ismail_Zadeh_etal Date:30/12/13 Time:11:12:21 Page Number: 243 18 Natural hazards in Saudi Arabia Abdulaziz M. Al-Bassam, Faisal K. Zaidi, and Mohammad T. Hussein 18.1 Introduction serious natural hazard being faced by the cities mostly in During the last few decades the frequency of the occur- central and eastern Saudi Arabia. Flash floods, occasional rence of natural hazards has increased mainly due to the seismic events, and dust storms are the major natural inhabitation of zones prone to natural hazards. Population hazards in Saudi Arabia. According to the EM-DAT pressure has resulted in human settlements in hazardous (http://www.emdat.be/), 14 disasters due to natural hazards environments such as on the flanks of volcanoes as in occurred in Saudi Arabia between 1980 and 2010 claiming Yogyakarta, Indonesia (Chester et al., 2000) or on flood a total of 484 lives and causing over US$1 billion of plains as in the Ganges–Brahmaputra delta (Gracheva and economic damage. Golyeva, 2010) or in low lying or subsiding coastal areas, Arid and semi-arid regions are typically prone to flash which can be seen in parts of Netherlands (Leroy, 2013). floods during rainfall events mainly due to the lack of Natural hazards are threats to life and property only if they vegetation and poor infiltration capacity of the surface occur in populated or inhabited areas. Human intervention soils, which results in the generation of enormous volumes has increased the frequency and severity of disasters asso- of surface runoff. Flash floods have become an issue of ciated with natural hazards. Four factors which have the concern in the major urban centres around the world. This potential to change a natural hazard into a disaster include is mostly because of increasing population pressure, which time, space, society, and the type of event (Leroy, 2013). requires more infrastructural development. This pressure The 13 March 2011 9.0 magnitude earthquake followed by has often resulted in the construction of buildings in topo- tsunami waves and flooding in Japan, the 2004 Indian graphically low-lying regions, which in turn has obstructed Ocean earthquake followed by tsunami waves and flooding the natural rainwater drainage (Hussein and Zaidi, 2012). in South-East Asia, the 2005 Hurricane Katrina in the The increase of the constructed area has limited the natural USA, the 2005 Kashmir earthquake, and the 2008 Sichuan land available for infiltration, thus resulting in the gener- earthquake in China are just a few examples of the notable ation of more surface runoff, which at times exceeds the natural disasters in the recent past. According to the ISDR normal water bearing capacity of the urban sewer systems, disaster statistics approximately 960 000 people were thereby causing floods. killed during the period 1991–2005 due to natural hazards. The seismic zones in Saudi Arabia are situated along Earthquakes, tsunamis, floods, and hurricanes are the most the Red Sea and the Gulf of Aden in the west and south commonly occurring natural hazards that cause wide spread and the subduction zone associated with the Zagros suture destruction of lives and property on a frequent basis. in the north. In general, the damage and losses associated The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia is prone to natural with earthquakes are low over Saudi Arabia, however, the hazards. The northwestern region of the Kingdom is prone regions along the Red Sea coast are vulnerable to earth- to earthquakes and volcanic hazards, whereas the central quakes. The Dead Sea transform fault along the Gulf of and western regions of the Kingdom are exposed to floods Aqaba is the most seismologically active region of Saudi especially during heavy rainfalls. Landslides are a common Arabia. The Gulf region has active sinistral transform phenomenon in the inhabited mountainous regions of the faults with associated pull-apart basins and hence is the southwest. Shifting sand dunes and dust storms are a area where large damaging earthquakes occur. Extreme Natural Hazards, Disaster Risks and Societal Implications, eds. Alik Ismail-Zadeh, Jaime Urrutia-Fucugauchi, Andrzej Kijko, and Ilya Zaliapin. Published by Cambridge University Press. © Cambridge University Press 2014. Comp. by: K.VENKATESAN Stage: Proof Chapter No.: 18 Title Name: Ismail_Zadeh_etal Date:30/12/13 Time:11:12:22 Page Number: 244 244 Extreme Natural Hazards, Disaster Risks and Societal Implications Dust and sand storms are other major natural hazards, hydrological behaviour and flood probability for a few which are common in the arid and semi-arid regions. They selected basins in the Makkah region in western Saudi occur when strong wind blows the dust and sand from dry Arabia and established the rainfall frequency curves and surfaces. The Sahara desert and the dry land around the flood probabilities based on the rainfall records. Al Saud Arabian Peninsula are the largest sources of airborne dust (2010) used a Geographic Information System (GIS) based in the world (Junge, 1979; Morales, 1979; Ganor and approach to assess the hazardous impact of flash floods that Mamane, 1982). Though drought and winds are the major occurred in Jeddah in November 2009 and emphasised the cause of dust storms, they are also caused by poor farming relationship between urbanisation and the flooding pattern and grazing practices and infrastructure development and pointed out the risk of allowing further development in projects. areas at risk of flooding. Dawod et al. (2013) established a GIS based process to quantify the peak discharge and runoff volume in Makkah city based on curve number (CN) methodology. Al-Ghamdi et al. (2012) investigated 18.2 Flood hazard the effects of urbanisation on the runoff volume using the Flash floods are very common in arid regions and cause CN flood modelling methodology and found a positive wide spread destruction of life and property. The occur- correlation between urbanisation, peak discharge, and rence of flash floods is a complex phenomenon and flood volume. depends on a number of factors such as regional geology, The Jeddah flood, which occurred as a result of more the morphometric characteristics of the drainage basin, and than 90 mm of rainfall falling within a span of 4 hours on the flood plain area (Subyani and Al-Dakheel, 2009). Other 25 November 2009, was described by the civil defence as important factors, which affect the occurrence and severity the worst in the past 27 years. More than 100 people were of flash floods, include the duration and the intensity of reported dead and about 350 people missing. The business rainfall, surface runoff, evaporation, and infiltration rates damages alone were reported to be about 1 billion Saudi (Nouh, 2006; Sen, 2008). Flash floods have become one of Riyals (Al Saud, 2010). A similar heavy rainfall event of the significant threats to life and property in many parts of more than 110 mm within a short span flooded the city of the world mainly due to the increase in population pressure Jeddah again on the 26 January 2011 (Fig. 18.1). Though and improper land use planning (Borga et al., 2010). there were only a few deaths, the loss to property was Changes in the global precipitation pattern due to global enormous as most of the city’s low lying areas were warming (Groisman et al., 2005) have resulted in a change inundated. of the planet’s hydrological cycle (Huntington, 2006). This Jeddah is situated on a narrow strip along the Red Sea global change has resulted in the increase in frequency of coast with the width of the coastal zone within the city flash floods in many parts of the world (Marchi et al., ranging from 5 to 10 km. The coastal plain gives way to the 2010), including the arid regions. The magnitude of flash Asir mountain region, which presents an abrupt change in floods in such regions increases further if the soil is satur- topography showing a very high relief. It was shown that ated due to previous rainfall events. the city of Jeddah serves as the mouth of as many as Saudi Arabia is one of the most arid regions of the world; however this has not prevented the growth of big cities along its coasts, like Jeddah and Dammam, and along the ancient Wadi system, such as Riyadh, Madinah, and Makkah. Though the average annual rainfall in Saudi Arabia is only about 100 mm y-1 (Presidency of Meteorology and Environment, 2005), it is not free from hydrological hazards especially in the big cities like Jeddah and Riyadh mainly due to rapid urbanisation which has led to the development of housing in topographically low-lying regions and obstruction of the natural drainage systems. The severe flood in the city of Jeddah in Novem- ber 2009 as a result of heavy rainfall and the blockage of natural drainage system is one example. Because of the frequent occurrence of flash floods in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, a lot of studies have been Figure 18.1. Flooding in Jeddah, January 2011 (Photo: R. Awad; focused on flood assessment and flood hazard estimations. http://www.moveoneinc.com/blog/moving/jeddah-floods-cause- Subyani and Al-Dakheel (2009) carried out a study on the unknown-delays-to-shipping-times/) Comp. by: K.VENKATESAN Stage: Proof Chapter No.: 18 Title Name: Ismail_Zadeh_etal Date:30/12/13 Time:11:12:22 Page Number: 245 Natural hazards in Saudi Arabia 245 16 watersheds (Al Saud, 2010). The dense drainage net- exposed in the Arabian Shield part, whereas the Platform works coupled with thick alluvium deposits in the valley is covered by Phanerozoic sediments showing a gradual courses were some of the natural causes that attenuated the thickening from west to east (Şeber and Mitchell, 1992).
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