Nat. Hazards Earth Syst. Sci., 17, 381–396, 2017 www.nat-hazards-earth-syst-sci.net/17/381/2017/ doi:10.5194/nhess-17-381-2017 © Author(s) 2017. CC Attribution 3.0 License. Exceptional floods in the Prut basin, Romania, in the context of heavy rains in the summer of 2010 Gheorghe Romanescu and Cristian Constantin Stoleriu Faculty of Geography and Geology, Department of Geography, Alexandru Ioan Cuza University of Iasi, Bd. Carol I, 20 A, 700505 Iasi, Romania Correspondence to: Gheorghe Romanescu (
[email protected]) Received: 30 August 2016 – Discussion started: 12 September 2016 Revised: 4 January 2017 – Accepted: 13 February 2017 – Published: 10 March 2017 Abstract. The year 2010 was characterized by devastating ina, and Montenegro (Bissolli et al., 2011; Szalinska et al., flooding in central and eastern Europe, including Romania, 2014) (Fig. 1). The strongest floods from 2010 were regis- the Czech Republic, Slovakia, and Bosnia-Herzegovina. This tered in the Danube basin (see Table 1). For Romania, we study focuses on floods that occurred during the summer of underlined the floods from the basins of Prut, Siret, Moldova, 2010 in the Prut River basin, which has a high percentage and Bistri¸tarivers. The most devastating floods in Romania of hydrotechnical infrastructure. Strong floods occurred in occurred in Moldavia (Prut, Siret) and Transylvania (Tisa, eastern Romania on the Prut River, which borders the Re- Somes, Tarnave, Olt). The most deaths were recorded in public of Moldova and Ukraine, and the Siret River. Atmo- Poland (25), Romania (six on the Buhai River, a tributary spheric instability from 21 June to 1 July 2010 caused re- of the Jijia), Slovakia (three), Serbia (two), Hungary (two), markable amounts of rain, with rates of 51.2 mm/50 min and and the Czech Republic (two) (Romanescu and Stoleriu, 42.0 mm/30 min.