Methodological proposal for the study of floods in plains areas with a lack of information

Abstract

The plains constitute areas of great potential for agricultural production frequently affected by floods. The objective of the work is to use a methodology that allows demonstrating under what conditions floods occur in plains areas with a shortage of basic information, taking as a case study the Samborombón River basin, located in the center-east of Argentina. For this, Landsat satellite images were observed and daily water balances were performed, to subsequently perform a statistical analysis of recurrence. The results obtained show that flooding is greatly influenced by previous soil water conditions. The methodology used allows estimating return periods in low-slope plain basins, requiring only satellite images of free access and daily average temperature and precipitation data, obtaining results that reflect the state of the basin after precipitation events.