page_title: Durance
section_title: Flash floods and low water levels
hierarchical_section_title: Durance / Hydrology / Flash floods and low water levels
caption_attribution_description: Français&#160;: Evacuateur de crue depuis le pont d'Espinasse
context_page_description: The Durance is a major river in south-eastern France. A left tributary of the Rhône, it is 323.2 km long. Its drainage basin is 14,472 km².
  Its source is in the south-western Alps, in Montgenèvre ski resort near Briançon and it flows south-west through the following departments and cities:
  Hautes-Alpes: Briançon, Embrun.
  Alpes-de-Haute-Provence: Sisteron, Manosque.
  Vaucluse: Cavaillon, Avignon.
  Bouches-du-Rhône.
  The Durance's largest tributary is the Verdon. The Durance itself is a tributary of the Rhône and flows into the Rhône near Avignon. The Durance is the second longest of the tributaries of the Rhône and the third largest in terms of its flow.
context_section_description: The river is famous historically for its unstable course and violent floods. In the 12th century the Durance had swept away the town of Rama (between Briançon and Embrun, with the confluence of Biaisse) .
  These increased in number and force from the second half of the 16th century, though lessened in the 20th century. The period of increased flooding was not only due to the cooling starting from the 14th and until the 19th century (with increased rain and snowfall), but also because the major deforestation of the slopes of the mountains of the basin of the Durance, starting from the 16th century.
  Between 1832 and 1890, the Durance had 188 floods of more than 3 metres (10 ft) (measured at the Mirabeau Bridge). The flood of 1843 carried away several newly built suspension bridges: the 1829 bridge at Remollon, the 1835 bridge at Mirabeau, the unfinished bridge at Manosque and the 1838 bridge at Les Mées. The flood of 1872 also swept away the 1847 bridge at Mallemort.
  The catastrophic floods of 1843, 1856, 1886 attained 5,000 to 6,000 cubic metres per second (180,000 to 210,000 cu ft/s) For comparison, the Seine flooding of 1910 was estimated at approximately 2,400 cubic metres per second (85,000 cu ft/s). Even lesser floods were devastating. The flood of 31 May and 1 June 1877 swept away the bridge of Tallard.
  In the 20th century, the floods were less frequent and violent thanks to the dams and the re-afforestation in the Durance basin, but there were still serious floods in 1957 and 1994 with maxima measured at Mirabeau and at Sisteron of 2,800 cubic metres per second (99,000 cu ft/s); and this volume was increased at the confluence with the Verdon by a further 500 cubic metres per second (18,000 cu ft/s).
  The height of the water at the gorge at Cadarache is at 472 millimetres (18.6 in), after an average of 750 millimetres (30 in) of rain because 63% of the rain flows into the Durance.
  At Mirabeau, the lowest flow was 27 cubic metres per second (950 cu ft/s) (during the drought of 1921) i.e. a ratio of 1:133 between minimum and maximum.
caption: Plume of water rising at the dam of Serre-Ponçon seen from the bridge at Espinasse - May 30, 2008
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