Analysis of the historical flood database under Directive 2007/60/EC

The subject of this thesis is, on the first place, the analysis of the historical flood database, as it is required and described by the Directive 2007/60/EC concerning floods in Europe, which is a part of the preliminary assessment of flood risk. Secondly, to propose the creation of an "identity" for the flood events included in this database. The aim of the description is the analysis of each episode, the supply of as many information as possible concerning the damage caused by each flood and, last but not least, an attempt to interpret the consequences of each flood event based on the amount of rainfall recorded on the same day. In the article 4 of the Directive 2007/60/EC the construction of a historic flood data database is assigned to every state - member as a part of the preliminary assessment of flood risk as well as finding the sensitive to flooding areas in each country, for the database will be used for the construction of flood risk maps. In general, the required data for each event are: • The location of the flood (county and village or locality) • The causes of flooding • The mechanism of the flood • The characteristics of the flood • The type of consequences that have resulted from the flood • The total cost of the damage caused by the flood event • The number of human casualties During the registration process of this thesis, all the flood phenomena that have occurred since 1896 up to 2011and are included in the database were used to produce results. For a better understanding of these flood events (e.g. frequency, locality etc) a spatial and temporal statistical analysis was performed. This analysis showed that floods mainly affect lowland and coastal areas of northern and eastern Greece. In the corresponding time analysis, it was found that the month with the most recordings of flood events is November, followed by October.