Regional Analysis Of Thehydrological Regimes And Their Stability In The Mediterranean Zone

At large scale of space, the main climate characteristics that are prevalent in the countries belonging to the Mediterranean European zone are influenced by the Mediterranean and oceanic circulation as well and/or the continental climate. These determine the “macro-types” of hydrological regimes. Each of these “macro-types” encompasses “subtypes” of river flow regimes, the occurrence of which is considerably controlled by the physiographical properties of specific sub-areas. Among these, the altitude plays the most important role as it expresses the variation in altitude of a particular macro-type of the climate and it implicitly reflects the configuration of the river network, channel and slope gradients, soil and land cover. This paper describes the regime types at a finer scale from the Mediterranean zone of Europe, concentrating on the following aspects: • Types of the regimes defined by the timing of the high and low flow phases; • Regionalisation of the “micro-types” • Stability of the river flow regimes.