Hydrological simulation of the impacts of climate change in the Caimito river basin, La Chorrera, Panama Oeste

Abstract

High rainfall causes an increase in the water load in the river basin, causing overflows that create threatening situations. Threat zoning and flood vulnerability assessment are fundamental procedures for decision-making from the point of view of planning a territory and studies for risk mitigation and management. Using the hydrological and hydraulic inputs, information on depth and flow velocity is obtained according to the characteristics of the slope. In this study, the techniques, procedures and tools typical of a Geographic Information System (GIS) were used, to know exactly the areas of threat and vulnerability due to flooding, using the Hec-Ras hydraulic simulation model, defining the flood levels through cross-sectional profiles and digital terrain modeling, in order to carry out the zoning of flood threats, which is an optimal tool to achieve a management of the Rio Caimito basin, which allows the strategic planning of the basin and to identify the evacuation areas when another flood event occurs and thus be able to contribute to the resilience of that community and serve as a reference to other sectors.