1 research outputs found
Flood Mitigation Measure and Water Storage in East Africa: An Analysis for the Rio Muaguide, Mozambique
In the last century, floods have been more frequently hitting population and human activity,
especially in the sub-Saharan context. The aim of this study is to propose suitable flood mitigation
measures for the downstream part of the Rio Muaguide, which flows in northern Mozambique. In
this terminal part of the river, the bed has been buried by sediment in many reaches; due to the
reduction of the section conveyance, wide areas are inundated during the rainy season with negative
consequences for several villages relying on subsistence agriculture. The design of any measure
requires quantitative determinations but, as many less developed countries, Mozambique is affected
by data scarcity. Therefore, in this study global and freely available data have been used to perform
hydrologic and two-dimensional hydro-dynamic modelling, finally producing a flood hazard map.
Particular care has been put into a critical analysis of several data sources, in terms of their suitability
for the purposes of the work. Based on the modelling results and on field evidence, an intervention
has been proposed with a double functionality of mitigating the effects of periodic floods and storing
water to be used by the agricultural community during drier seasons. The proposed intervention
combines restoring a sedimentation-less shape of the river sections and exploiting a natural basin
as a storage basin. The methods applied and the intervention proposed for the Rio Muaguide are
prototypal for several analogous streams in the coastal portion of Mozambique