TY - JOUR AU - Nagy, László PY - 2006/01/01 Y2 - 2024/03/29 TI - Dike breaches in the Carpathian basin JF - Periodica Polytechnica Civil Engineering JA - Period. Polytech. Civil Eng. VL - 50 IS - 2 SE - Research Article DO - N/A UR - https://pp.bme.hu/ci/article/view/562 SP - 115-124 AB - Hungary is situated in the part of Europe drained by the Danube, in thedeepest part of the hydrographic unit called the Carpathian Basin. Herterritory covers 93000 km<I><sup>2</sup></I> and represents 11.4\% of the 817 000 km<I><sup>2</sup></I> largeDanube catchment. The Carpathian Basin is bounded to the west by the2000-3000 high ranges of the Alps, to the north and east by theCarpathian Range the peaks of which rise to over 1000-2000 m above sealevel. In contrast thereto, 70\% of the territories are plains below 200m, while hardly 1\% consists of hills higher than 500 m AMSL. The easternparts of the country are the deepest, the lowlands here being between80-100 m AMSL only. Owing to this topography, an area of round 21 200km<I><sup>2</sup></I>, that is 23\% of the territory of Hungary is below the floodlevel of the rivers. This fact alone presents flood defence problems whichare unique in Europe and comparable in order of magnitude perhaps to thosein the Netherlands alone. ER -