Risk Assessment of Flash Floods in the Valley of the Kings, Egypt

Abstract

Flash floods unavoidably affect various archaeological sites in Egypt, through increased frequency and severity of extreme events. The Valley of the Kings (KV) is a UNESCO World Heritage site with more than thirty opened tombs. Recently, most of these tombs have been damaged and inundated after 1994 flood. Therefore, KV mitigation strategy has been proposed and implemented with low height protection wall surrounding tombs. The present study focuses on the evaluation and risk assessment of the current mitigation measures especially under extreme flood events. Two dimensional hydrodynamic model combined with rainfall runoff modeling by using TELEMAC-2D was used to simulate the present situation without protection wall and determine the risk of 1994 flood and future extreme ones. The results revealed that the current mitigation measures are not efficient for 100 yrs flood. Based on the simulation scenarios, risk of flash floods is assessed, and the more efficient mitigation measurements are proposed.