Coastal Risk and Water Flow Analysis in Eastern Algeria (Western Mediterranean)

Abstract

In this paper, we present the combination of tsunami modelling studies with a GIS approach to analyse the coastal flooding risk in eastern Algeria. The Jijel and Bejaia regions are well-known for their seismic and tsunami risk. The modelling was carried out with the Geoclaw software. It provided the water flow velocities in addition to water heights results for several points of interest located between the Bejaia and the Jijel coast. The simulations were based on a 7.6 magnitude earthquake offshore the Jijel bay. Maps visualizing the susceptibility to flooding were generated in ArcGIS using the GIS integrated weighted overlay tools. By aggregating and weighting morphometric factors (such as the lowest height levels and lowest slope gradients) influencing the susceptibility to flooding the coastal areas prone to inundations in case of high energetic flood waves (tsunami, storm surge, meteo .tsunami) from the sea side can be determined. The entrances of river mouths are the locations marked by the highest susceptibility to potential flooding.