| Popis: |
During the last few decades, there has been an increase in the number of natural disasters in Greece, triggering consequences and raising public awareness. This research highlights air masses trajectories during flash floods and meteorological disasters in Greece, registered in the Emergency Database EM-DAT. Registered disasters on the EM-DAT platform offer a relevant information base for vulnerability assessment and rational decision-making in disaster situations. In Greece, the time series of registered disasters covered 117 years between 1904 and 2021, and 146 disasters were registered; 100 and 46 events were classified, respectively, as natural and technological disasters. The period 1980–2021 records a total of 83 out of 100 natural disasters. The categories of natural disasters included in the database do not vary, but there has been a striking increase in the number of meteorological and hydrological ones during the period 1980–2021. Meteorological disasters (a total of 17, out of which 15 were registered after 1980) and hydrological ones (23, all of them registered after 1980). Meteorological and hydrological disasters are associated with the large-scale circulation of air masses, which favors the occurrence of such phenomena. In order to identify their characteristics, back-trajectories analysis was used. The results indicate that flash floods occur when air masses are moving above warm sea waters, while for the other meteorological disasters, air masses moved from North Africa or North Europe/Atlantic areas. |
