Cross-border hydrological hazard and risk differences in the case of the Prut River for Romania and the Republic of Moldova

In hazard-to-risk assessment, often given the same natural hazard situations, risk is generalized in terms of scenarios and vulnerability. In reality, even in the same natural hazard situations, vulnerability can be different, considering different natural, social, political and economic aspects. This is also the case of the Prut floodplain, which has long been a hard political border and where two different socio-economic regimes have shaped human-environment interactions over the last 55-75 years. Despite the joint construction of the Stânca-Costești reservoir, predominantly downstream the Romanian side built dikes, after the Second World War, resulting in a lower theoretical vulnerability. On the Moldovan side, the dyke network is not very extensive and especially in the floods after 2000, the vulnerability and risks were greater. We mapped the dike network on both banks of the Prut River on LiDAR data and synthesized the post-2000 flood impact to establish a vulnerability estimation framework.