Catastrophic flash flood triggered by an extreme rainfall event in El Rodeo village, January 2014. Northwestern Pampean Ranges of Argentina

ESPER, L. Y PERUCCA, L.; VARGAS, H.; ESPER, L. Y PERUCCA, L.; VARGAS, H.

GEOGRAFISKA ANNALER SERIES A-PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY

WILEY-BLACKWELL PUBLISHING, INC

Lugar: Londres; Año: 2017 vol. 99 p. 72 - 84

0435-3676

Flash floods occur periodically in the hilly areas of Argentina, but since theygenerally occur at inhabited areas, these are rarely registered. Severalfactors contribute to the occurrence of flash floods: heavy seasonal rains,rugged topography and geological structures. On Thursday night, 23January 2014 an extreme rainfall event, took place in El Rodeo,Catamarca Province, triggering an unexpected flash flood. This floodcaused 14 fatalities and great economic losses in the main localities ofthe Ambato Department. Steep slope gradients facilitated the quickdrainage of the precipitated volumes. Water, boulders and debrischanneled downstream caused severe stream bank erosion and majordamage to houses roads and bridges. This paper presents amorphometric analysis in order to determine some geomorphiccharacteristics of the Ambato River basin, together with a preliminaryanalysis of the flood hazard potentially damaging to inhabitants andinfrastructure to downstream villages. The study was carried out usinghigh-resolution satellite data acquired before and after the event. Thedrainage networks were derived from Aster GDEM V2 and satellite images.