The impact of flash-floods on the adjacent marine environment: the case of Mandra and Nea Peramos (November 2017), Greec
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The impact of flash-floods on the adjacent marine environment: the case of Mandra and Nea Peramos (November 2017), Greece Theodore D. Kanellopoulos 1 & Aristomenis P. Karageorgis 1 & Aikaterini Kikaki 1,2 & Styliani Chourdaki 1 & Ioannis Hatzianestis 1 & Ioannis Vakalas 3 & Georgios-Angelos Hatiris 1 Received: 18 July 2019 / Revised: 12 August 2020 / Accepted: 13 August 2020 # Springer Nature B.V. 2020
Abstract The extreme flash-flood of November 2017 in Western Attica, Greece, caused severe damages not only in the landward area, but also in the adjacent marine environment. The study of a number of data, such as visual observations immediately after the catastrophic event, a series of satellite images that demonstrate the movement of the flood-related suspended material, and comparative elemental and hydrocarbon geochemical analyses between the fresh, recently deposited sediments, and the older ones, have shown that an extended part of the Elefsis Bay, particularly the northeastern sector, has experienced a severe modification in its sedimentary and geochemical status, that may have irreversibly affected the already environmentally degraded marine ecosystem of the area. Keywords Flash-flood . Satellite images . Elemental geochemistry . Hydrocarbons . Mandra . Nea Peramos . Elefsis Bay . Attica
Introduction Modern major flash-flood events are indissolubly linked to human activities and their impacts to the physical environment, as expressed by climate change and the greenhouse effect (Mitchell 1989; Pielke et al. 2002 and references therein). The improper land use planning and the nonimplementation of flood protection practices further reinforce the consequences of such disasterous phenomena (Jha et al. 2012). From 1960 to 2014, flood events accounted for 34% of the natural disasters worldwide, representing 1254 deaths/year (Guha-Sapir et al. 2009; Petit-Boix et al. 2017). As expected, most of the recorded major floods have occurred in highly populated urban areas (Jha et al. 2011). According to worldwide examples, the effects of flash-floods can be equally
* Theodore D. Kanellopoulos [email protected] 1
Hellenic Centre for Marine Research, Institute of Oceanography, 46.7 km Athens-Sounio Ave., 19013 Anavyssos, Attica, Greece
2
School of Rural and Surveying Engineering, Remote Sensing Laboratory, National Technical University of Athens, Iroon Polytechneiou 9, 15780 Zografou, Greece
3
Soil and Rock Mechanics Laboratory, Pavlou Mela 13, 14231 Athens, Greece
destructive in the coastal/marine zone as those observed landwards. In Greece, one of the most important factors for flashflooding is the outbreak of intense rainfalls during autumn and summer periods (Papagiannaki et al. 2013). Geomorphology, soil characteristics (such as soil moisture), land use and human interference play also an important role in the formation of flash-floods (Varlas et al. 2019). Furthermore, there were 686 fatalities in the country due to a total of 545 flood events during the period 1880–2010 (Diakakis et al. 2012). In November 2017, on
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