Gabriela Adina MOROSANU, The Institute of Geography of the Romanian Academy, Romania
Andreea Ana-Maria FARTE, University of Bucharest, Faculty of Geography, Romania
Andrei MATIAS, University of Bucharest, Faculty of Geography, Romania
Theodoara DRAGAN, University of Bucharest, Faculty of Geography, Romania
Rivers represent an essential resource of life, energy, construction materials, food. As such, antropogenetic activities on the river are quite common. Understanding a river’s behavior under the multiple human impacts, either for resource usage or for flood mitigation, can help us learn how to react and best act to protect rivers and defend communities from hydrological risks.
Showcasing Gilort River, located in the SW Romania, a second order tributary of the Danube River, this paper aims to present the human impact on the dynamics of the riverbed and on the flooding damage via a simu?ated model in CitySkylines game, employed as a teaching tool.
Hydrological data (liquid discharge and water levels series at existing gauging stations) were corroborated with information extracted from satelite images about the fluvial environment configuration (morphometry, vegetation, land and infrastructure elements exposure). In addition, the impact of the sandmines and of the micro-hydropowerplants was also considered, by simulating their potential and observed hydro-sedimentary effects on the flooding impact. Subsequently, by using the tools offered by ArcGIS online, we designed a series of interactive story maps to emphasise the impact of human influence on the Gilort River, allowing us to better understand the connection between the anthropogenic activities (i.e. structural measures on the river channel, micro-hydropower plants and sand mining) and the floods’ impact on the river landscape. Game-based simulations could be used as learning tools in high school and college preparatory years to understand the human-environment interactions in a fluvial setting exposed to flooding and hydromorphological changes.
The results, even though obtained from game-based simulations, using approximate dimensional and volumetric elements, can be used as a basis for more advanced future schemes in the process of improving the local river management against extreme hydrological events.
Mots clés : antropogenic activities|game-based simulations|floods|Gilort river
A105475TD