ESTUDO DAS VAZÕES E ESTIMATIVAS DE INUNDAÇÕES NO BAIXO-AÇU-RN

Abstract

The Brazilian Northeast is associated with episodes of droughts, however it is very common that this region is affected by extreme hydrometeorological events with several consecutive days of rains that result in floods, not restricted only to the coast, and may even be commonplace also in the semi-arid region, depending on the meteorological conditions in a given period. In the state of Rio Grande do Norte, the main cause for the occurrence of such episodes of flooding was derived from extreme hydrometeorological phenomena, mainly upstream of the Piranhas-Açu River. The objective of this paper was to perform hydrological modeling for different return periods (5, 10, 50 and 100 years) to estimate the flood quotas in the Baixo-Açu region from the study of the Piranhas-Açu river flows. The modeling was elaborated from the secondary data collection with the Departamento Nacional de Obras Contra as Secas (DNOCS, 2012) and hydrological simulation using HEC-version 3.5 software. The modeling showed that, even floods resulting from flow rates for low recurrence times (5 and 10 years), flood large areas.