Assessment of the flooded zone of the Amur River floodplain in 2013 based on space monitoring data. E.G. EGIDAREV, L.V. GORBATENKO, D.G. TYUNYATKIN

Abstract

Assessment of the flooded zone of the Amur River floodplain in 2013 based on space monitoring data. E.G. EGIDAREV^1,2, L.V. GORBATENKO¹, D.G. TYUNYATKIN¹ (¹Pacific Geographical Institute, FEB RAS, Vladivostok, ²World Wildlife Fund (WWF), Amur Branch, Vladivostok).

Playing an important role in human economic activities, floodplains are often impacted by floods, sometimes catastrophic ones. Using remote sensing data and considering the period of a flood wave passage, the maximum flooding zone of the Amur River floodplain in the Russian part of the basin was delineated from the Zeya water reservoir to the estuary during the flood in 2013, and its area was calculated. The calculation was carried out for the parts of the basin, determined for the convenience of selecting satellite images with a time reference to the dates of the maximum water levels measured at observation stations of the Russian meteorological service. During the calculations, the existing protection status of floodplain areas was taken into account. The obtained estimates show the cumulative actual impact of the 2013 flood on the Amur River floodplain and its ecosystems. These data can be used to assess the most flood-risk territories, to estimate environmental threats to floodplain sites in terms of distributed water pollution, as well as for protection of floodplain ecosystems.