A national overview of historical floods in Romania over the past 800 years

Study region Romania is located in the lower sector of the Danube hydrographic basin, and approximately 98% of its hydrographic network is tributary to the Danube. Romania's national territory covers an area of 232,193 km 2 , and its hydrographic network has a length of 115,000 km. This hydrographic network is managed on a basin basis through 11 hydrographic basin administrations (HBAs), which were used in our analysis. Study focus This study focuses on mapping historical hydrological events that occurred on the territory of Romania between 1234 and 2024. A geospatial database, named ROmanian Flood Event Database (RO-FED), has been created that incorporates information regarding the period, intensity, and magnitude of these hydrological events. This database can be used as an analytical tool at both national and international levels to understand flood patterns. New hydrological insights for the region The final version of the database contains 1084 hydrological events. Based on the analysis of the dataset, we can conclude that Romania is facing an increase in floods, with summer floods being the most predominant. The Carpathian Mountain system influences the occurrence of spring floods in the river basins of western Romania. Furthermore, the most affected HBAs are RO10 (Siret HBA) and RO3 (Olt HBA), while the highest number of casualties were recorded in RO7 (Mureș HBA) and RO10 (Siret HBA).