Morphometric-Hydro Characterization of the Coastal Line between El-Qussier and Marsa-Alam, Egypt: Preliminary Flood Risk Signatures

Abstract

Egypt is highly exposed to flash flood hazards, particularly in Sinai Peninsula and along the Red Sea coast, causing sudden and huge damages to constructions and huge losses in human lives during a very short time. This paper investigates the dominant characterization of morphometrical features and their relationships with the hydrological behaviors along an important strip of the western Red Sea coast. The study focuses on analyzing the October 2009 and 2019 storm events along the coastal area between EL-Qussier and Marsa Alam in order to intiate a preliminary flood risk assessment model. Morphometric features along the entire study zone provide a complete scenario of the nature of the catchments and sub-catchments development. Numerous morphometric indexes such as catchments geometry, areal indexes, linear indexes, and relief indexes were examined through processing different sets of data. Modern techniques such as remote sensing and geospatial analysis were applied to process different spatial and spectral data. The hydrological model (HEC-HMS) in the WMS software was run to delineate the catchments and sub-catchments and extract the peak flow hydrograph curves for the main catchments. The results of the water amounts and peak flow were calculated using the SCS unit hydrograph approach. The hydrological characteristics of the major catchments reveal conditions for moderate levels of flash flooding. The study ended with a number of recommendations that could minimize the negative effects of the flash flood hazards.