Floods in the Mediterranean area: The role of soil moisture and precipitation

In Mediterranean area (MA), floods are, after droughts, the most dangerous meteorological hazard causing severe damages of manmade infrastructures, produce large loss of lives, and adversely affect the opportunities for socio-economic development of MA countries. MA is characterized by a relatively high number of flash floods (FFs) and floods occurring in small catchments normally triggered by deep convective systems associated with intense precipitation with a limited areal extent and high initial wetness conditions. For these reasons, the understating of the role of rainfall and soil moisture as well as the techniques available for their monitoring is particularly important. In this chapter, we review the most important studies carried out on floods in MA, which focuses on (1) the importance of the rainfall and soil moisture in the triggering and evolution of these events; (2) the monitoring techniques and models available to estimate these two variables along with their operational use for their prediction.