Characterization of the March 13th 2020 flash flood in the Eastern Sahara and recommendations for unconventional protection measures in arid deserts

Maha Selim, Abotalib Z. Abotalib (), Abdullah Othman and Mohammed Khattab
Additional contact information
Maha Selim: Cairo University
Abotalib Z. Abotalib: National Authority for Remote Sensing and Space Sciences
Abdullah Othman: Umm Al-Qura University
Mohammed Khattab: Cairo University

Natural Hazards: Journal of the International Society for the Prevention and Mitigation of Natural Hazards, 2025, vol. 121, issue 9, No 43, 11117-11149

Abstract: Abstract Climate change increases the reoccurrence of torrential rains in the Sharan-Arabian desert leading to unprecedented flash floods. The study characterizes the March 13, 2020 event that hit the Eastern Desert (ED) of Egypt and proposes unconventional protection measures using Wadi An-Nu’amiyyah basin as a test site. Supported by topographic and geological maps, remote sensing and field data, the study applies the Soil Conservation Service–Curve Number method (SCS-CN) and Manning equation. Findings showed that 67% of the rainfall occurred between 11 am and 2 pm on March 12th. The total time of discharge was 22 h with three discharge peaks of 96, 92.1 and 85.6 m3/s. The current protection includes concrete culverts (120 m3/s) beneath the Eastern Military road and the artificial flash flood channel (AFFC) (48.07 m3/s). However, the AFFC is not sufficient to accommodate the readily increasing flash floods, yet the close proximity of urban areas impedes the efforts to increase its capacity. Moreover, denudation and tectonic processes have led to the development of very wide wadis (> 400 m) thus challenging the construction of—dams. Instead, the study suggests establishing two retention reservoirs along/near active channels through enlarging the abandoned open pits for quarrying of raw building materials with a total capacity of 5.5 million m3. Under forecasted increase in flash floods in the ED, a large-scale open quarrying along/near active channels should be encouraged as an unconventional measure for flash flood protection in the ED and similar arid areas.

Keywords: March 13; 2020 flash flood; Al Maaza Plateau; SCS-CN method; Climate change; Open pits (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2025
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
http://link.springer.com/10.1007/s11069-025-07224-0 Abstract (text/html)
Access to the full text of the articles in this series is restricted.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:spr:nathaz:v:121:y:2025:i:9:d:10.1007_s11069-025-07224-0

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.springer.com/economics/journal/11069

DOI: 10.1007/s11069-025-07224-0

Access Statistics for this article

Natural Hazards: Journal of the International Society for the Prevention and Mitigation of Natural Hazards is currently edited by Thomas Glade, Tad S. Murty and Vladimír Schenk

More articles in Natural Hazards: Journal of the International Society for the Prevention and Mitigation of Natural Hazards from Springer, International Society for the Prevention and Mitigation of Natural Hazards
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sonal Shukla () and Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing ().