GEOGRAPHIA NAPOCENSIS AN. VI, nr. 2/2012 http://geographianapocensis.acad-cluj.ro Geographia Napocensis Anul VI, Nr. 2, 2012 103 GIS UTILITY FOR HYDROLOGICAL IMPACT EVALUATION CAUSED BY DAMAGES OF WATER SUPPLY NETWORK IN RURAL AREAS. APPLICATIONS IN BAIA MARE DEPRESSION RADU ALEXANDRU MARIAN 1 , IONEL HAIDU 2,3 , AUGUSTIN IONUŢ CRĂCIUN 3 , BOGDAN VĂDUVA 1 Abstract: - GIS utility for hydrological impact evaluation caused by damages of water supply network in rural areas. Applications in Baia Mare Depression. Occurrence of a failure within the water supply network is an element of risk with important hydrological implications. Although at first glance you might think that a pipe diameter of only 20 cm can generate large effects, however, in case of significant damage or even burst pipe, a good part of high water flow in the pipe (approx. 25 m 3 /h on average in the Baia Mare) associated with a long duration of failure (several hours) may be in the drain area, impact on the local community. Regarding rural settlements, surface drainage allow a quantity of water retention tank underground infiltration but in many cases lack of a sewage system effectively contribute to increased negative consequences related to such damage (flooding farms, roads, crops compromise of flooding or drought in the event of damage to the hot water supply pipe and so on). This paper focuses on the role of Geographic Information Systems (GIS) to assess the impact of runoff induced by damages in rural areas. The study therefore spatial aspect, through GIS, on the one hand runoff along the flow path with the start point of the network fault location and view previous hydrological conditions of the terrain, and on the other hand the impact of runoff the rural community. Study area Dumbrăviţa settlement located in Baia Mare Depression. This village is part of water supply system to the south and southeast of Baia Mare. Key-words: GIS, hydrological impact, damage, water supply network, Baia Mare Depression. 1. Introduction Following a failure in the water supply network the immediate hydrological impact on the local community is the interruption of water supply, sometimes the impact on residents subscribers, respectively household and economic activities undertaken by the affected village. However, the aspect that we wish to emphasize in this paper primarily relates to the impact surface fluid flow in terms of wasted water due to failures in the network, namely the danger of flooding of various areas of rural settlement. In modeling the impact of hydrological disaster followed, usually following lines of research: modeling of water supply network, the water pressure in the pipes (Grise et al., 2001, Trépanier et al., 2006, Zhang, 2006, Văduva et al., 2007, Capotescu, 2009, Ramesh et al., 2012), failure detection (Dong, Shinozuka, 2004) and modeling of pipelines damaged by analyzing the risk of failure (Andreou et al., 1987; Park et al., 2010) or modeling runoff and local flooding caused by damage (Zoppou, 2001, Amaguchi et al., 2012). The study area is located in Baia Mare Depression and overlaps water systems connected with the Baia Mare in the south and southeast; case studies of this work will be done on the level of Dumbrăviţa settlement [Fig. 1]. Water supply network of Baia Mare city and south and southeast of it comprises a total of 2230 sections of pipe.Of the 2230 sections of pipe situation in the rural settlements is as follows: Chechiş- 39 sections; Unguraş - 11 sections; Berinţa - 54 sections; Cărbunari - 42 1 „S.C. VITAL S.A.”, Baia Mare; Romania, ralex_marian@yahoo.com , bogdan_vaduva@yahoo.com 2 Université de Lorraine, Laboratoire CEGUM, Ile du Saulcy, 57045 Metz, France, ionel.haidu@univ-lorraine.fr 3 Babeş-Bolyai University, Faculty of Geography, 5-7 Clinicilor, 400006 Cluj-Napoca, România, augustin_ionutz@yahoo.com