The Recent Evolution of the Prut River Channel in the Territorial Administrative Unit of Prisăcani Commune - Iaşi County

Representing a direct response of hydrologic, hydrogeologic, geomorphologic, and anthropic factors, the dynamic of river channels has a useful scientific and practical importance, especially for the regions where the rivers play the role of state border. This article presents a detailed analysis of the dynamic of the Prut River channel for the last 125 years, concerning a 26 km sector of the river, which correspond to Prisacani territorial (local) administrative unit (LAU 2nd order), Iaşi County. This segment can be considered as a representative natural border between Romania and Republic of Moldavia along the middle Prut River course, downstream the Stânca-Costeşti anthropic lake. The work consisted in digitization of a large series topographic maps (1893-1894 edition at 1:50,000 scale, 1940 edition at 1:20,000 scale, the 1949, 1960 and 1985 editions at 1:25,000 scale), various remote sensing images: LANDSAT images for the 1990 and 2000 decades, SENTINEL 1A and 2A images for the year 2015 and 2016, LiDAR DEM (acquired in 2012), and Google Earth® high resolution optical satellite images collection. For the last two years, the channel dynamic was validated and completed using GPS measurements.