A high-resolution global flood hazard model

Science.gov (United States)

Sampson, Christopher C.; Smith, Andrew M.; Bates, Paul B.; Neal, Jeffrey C.; Alfieri, Lorenzo; Freer, Jim E.

2015-09-01

Floods are a natural hazard that affect communities worldwide, but to date the vast majority of flood hazard research and mapping has been undertaken by wealthy developed nations. As populations and economies have grown across the developing world, so too has demand from governments, businesses, and NGOs for modeled flood hazard data in these data-scarce regions. We identify six key challenges faced when developing a flood hazard model that can be applied globally and present a framework methodology that leverages recent cross-disciplinary advances to tackle each challenge. The model produces return period flood hazard maps at ˜90 m resolution for the whole terrestrial land surface between 56°S and 60°N, and results are validated against high-resolution government flood hazard data sets from the UK and Canada. The global model is shown to capture between two thirds and three quarters of the area determined to be at risk in the benchmark data without generating excessive false positive predictions. When aggregated to ˜1 km, mean absolute error in flooded fraction falls to ˜5%. The full complexity global model contains an automatically parameterized subgrid channel network, and comparison to both a simplified 2-D only variant and an independently developed pan-European model shows the explicit inclusion of channels to be a critical contributor to improved model performance. While careful processing of existing global terrain data sets enables reasonable model performance in urban areas, adoption of forthcoming next-generation global terrain data sets will offer the best prospect for a step-change improvement in model performance.

A framework for global river flood risk assessments

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Winsemius, H.C.; van Beek, L.P.H.|info:eu-repo/dai/nl/14749799X; Jongman, B.; Ward, P.J.; Bouwman, A.

2013-01-01

There is an increasing need for strategic global assessments of flood risks in current and future conditions. In this paper, we propose a framework for global flood risk assessment for river floods, which can be applied in current conditions, as well as in future conditions due to climate and

Hurricanes Harvey and Irma - High-Resolution Flood Mapping and Monitoring from Sentinel SAR with the Depolarization Reduction Algorithm for Global Observations of InundatioN (DRAGON)

Science.gov (United States)

Nghiem, S. V.; Brakenridge, G. R.; Nguyen, D. T.

2017-12-01

Hurricane Harvey inflicted historical catastrophic flooding across extensive regions around Houston and southeast Texas after making landfall on 25 August 2017. The Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) requested urgent supports for flood mapping and monitoring in an emergency response to the extreme flood situation. An innovative satellite remote sensing method, called the Depolarization Reduction Algorithm for Global Observations of inundatioN (DRAGON), has been developed and implemented for use with Sentinel synthetic aperture radar (SAR) satellite data at a resolution of 10 meters to identify, map, and monitor inundation including pre-existing water bodies and newly flooded areas. Results from this new method are hydrologically consistent and have been verified with known surface waters (e.g., coastal ocean, rivers, lakes, reservoirs, etc.), with clear-sky high-resolution WorldView images (where waves can be seen on surface water in inundated areas within a small spatial coverage), and with other flood maps from the consortium of Global Flood Partnership derived from multiple satellite datasets (including clear-sky Landsat and MODIS at lower resolutions). Figure 1 is a high-resolution (4K UHD) image of a composite inundation map for the region around Rosharon (in Brazoria County, south of Houston, Texas). This composite inundation map reveals extensive flooding on 29 August 2017 (four days after Hurricane Harvey made landfall), and the inundation was still persistent in most of the west and south of Rosharon one week later (5 September 2017) while flooding was reduced in the east of Rosharon. Hurricane Irma brought flooding to a number of areas in Florida. As of 10 September 2017, Sentinel SAR flood maps reveal inundation in the Florida Panhandle and over lowland surfaces on several islands in the Florida Keys. However, Sentinel SAR results indicate that flooding along the Florida coast was not extreme despite Irma was a Category-5 hurricane that might

Effects of climate variability on global scale flood risk

Science.gov (United States)

Ward, P.; Dettinger, M. D.; Kummu, M.; Jongman, B.; Sperna Weiland, F.; Winsemius, H.

2013-12-01

In this contribution we demonstrate the influence of climate variability on flood risk. Globally, flooding is one of the worst natural hazards in terms of economic damages; Munich Re estimates global losses in the last decade to be in excess of $240 billion. As a result, scientifically sound estimates of flood risk at the largest scales are increasingly needed by industry (including multinational companies and the insurance industry) and policy communities. Several assessments of global scale flood risk under current and conditions have recently become available, and this year has seen the first studies assessing how flood risk may change in the future due to global change. However, the influence of climate variability on flood risk has as yet hardly been studied, despite the fact that: (a) in other fields (drought, hurricane damage, food production) this variability is as important for policy and practice as long term change; and (b) climate variability has a strong influence in peak riverflows around the world. To address this issue, this contribution illustrates the influence of ENSO-driven climate variability on flood risk, at both the globally aggregated scale and the scale of countries and large river basins. Although it exerts significant and widespread influences on flood peak discharges in many parts of the world, we show that ENSO does not have a statistically significant influence on flood risk once aggregated to global totals. At the scale of individual countries, though, strong relationships exist over large parts of the Earth's surface. For example, we find particularly strong anomalies of flood risk in El Niño or La Niña years (compared to all years) in southern Africa, parts of western Africa, Australia, parts of Central Eurasia (especially for El Niño), the western USA (especially for La Niña), and parts of South America. These findings have large implications for both decadal climate-risk projections and long-term future climate change

A Global Geospatial Database of 5000+ Historic Flood Event Extents

Science.gov (United States)

Tellman, B.; Sullivan, J.; Doyle, C.; Kettner, A.; Brakenridge, G. R.; Erickson, T.; Slayback, D. A.

2017-12-01

A key dataset that is missing for global flood model validation and understanding historic spatial flood vulnerability is a global historical geo-database of flood event extents. Decades of earth observing satellites and cloud computing now make it possible to not only detect floods in near real time, but to run these water detection algorithms back in time to capture the spatial extent of large numbers of specific events. This talk will show results from the largest global historical flood database developed to date. We use the Dartmouth Flood Observatory flood catalogue to map over 5000 floods (from 1985-2017) using MODIS, Landsat, and Sentinel-1 Satellites. All events are available for public download via the Earth Engine Catalogue and via a website that allows the user to query floods by area or date, assess population exposure trends over time, and download flood extents in geospatial format.In this talk, we will highlight major trends in global flood exposure per continent, land use type, and eco-region. We will also make suggestions how to use this dataset in conjunction with other global sets to i) validate global flood models, ii) assess the potential role of climatic change in flood exposure iii) understand how urbanization and other land change processes may influence spatial flood exposure iv) assess how innovative flood interventions (e.g. wetland restoration) influence flood patterns v) control for event magnitude to assess the role of social vulnerability and damage assessment vi) aid in rapid probabilistic risk assessment to enable microinsurance markets. Authors on this paper are already using the database for the later three applications and will show examples of wetland intervention analysis in Argentina, social vulnerability analysis in the USA, and micro insurance in India.

Global drivers of future river flood risk

Science.gov (United States)

Winsemius, Hessel C.; Aerts, Jeroen C. J. H.; van Beek, Ludovicus P. H.; Bierkens, Marc F. P.; Bouwman, Arno; Jongman, Brenden; Kwadijk, Jaap C. J.; Ligtvoet, Willem; Lucas, Paul L.; van Vuuren, Detlef P.; Ward, Philip J.

2016-04-01

Understanding global future river flood risk is a prerequisite for the quantification of climate change impacts and planning effective adaptation strategies. Existing global flood risk projections fail to integrate the combined dynamics of expected socio-economic development and climate change. We present the first global future river flood risk projections that separate the impacts of climate change and socio-economic development. The projections are based on an ensemble of climate model outputs, socio-economic scenarios, and a state-of-the-art hydrologic river flood model combined with socio-economic impact models. Globally, absolute damage may increase by up to a factor of 20 by the end of the century without action. Countries in Southeast Asia face a severe increase in flood risk. Although climate change contributes significantly to the increase in risk in Southeast Asia, we show that it is dwarfed by the effect of socio-economic growth, even after normalization for gross domestic product (GDP) growth. African countries face a strong increase in risk mainly due to socio-economic change. However, when normalized to GDP, climate change becomes by far the strongest driver. Both high- and low-income countries may benefit greatly from investing in adaptation measures, for which our analysis provides a basis.

Usefulness and limitations of global flood risk models

Science.gov (United States)

Ward, Philip; Jongman, Brenden; Salamon, Peter; Simpson, Alanna; Bates, Paul; De Groeve, Tom; Muis, Sanne; Coughlan de Perez, Erin; Rudari, Roberto; Mark, Trigg; Winsemius, Hessel

2016-04-01

Global flood risk models are now a reality. Initially, their development was driven by a demand from users for first-order global assessments to identify risk hotspots. Relentless upward trends in flood damage over the last decade have enhanced interest in such assessments. The adoption of the Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction and the Warsaw International Mechanism for Loss and Damage Associated with Climate Change Impacts have made these efforts even more essential. As a result, global flood risk models are being used more and more in practice, by an increasingly large number of practitioners and decision-makers. However, they clearly have their limits compared to local models. To address these issues, a team of scientists and practitioners recently came together at the Global Flood Partnership meeting to critically assess the question 'What can('t) we do with global flood risk models?'. The results of this dialogue (Ward et al., 2013) will be presented, opening a discussion on similar broader initiatives at the science-policy interface in other natural hazards. In this contribution, examples are provided of successful applications of global flood risk models in practice (for example together with the World Bank, Red Cross, and UNISDR), and limitations and gaps between user 'wish-lists' and model capabilities are discussed. Finally, a research agenda is presented for addressing these limitations and reducing the gaps. Ward et al., 2015. Nature Climate Change, doi:10.1038/nclimate2742

Continental and global scale flood forecasting systems

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Emerton, Rebecca E.; Stephens, Elisabeth M.; Pappenberger, Florian; Pagano, Thomas P.; Weerts, A.H.; Wood, A.; Salamon, Peter; Brown, James D.; Hjerdt, Niclas; Donnelly, Chantal; Baugh, Calum A.; Cloke, Hannah L.

2016-01-01

Floods are the most frequent of natural disasters, affecting millions of people across the globe every year. The anticipation and forecasting of floods at the global scale is crucial to preparing for severe events and providing early awareness where local flood models and warning services may not

Use of ENVISAT ASAR Global Monitoring Mode to complement optical data in the mapping of rapid broad-scale flooding in Pakistan

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

D. O'Grady

2011-11-01

Full Text Available Envisat ASAR Global Monitoring Mode (GM data are used to produce maps of the extent of the flooding in Pakistan which are made available to the rapid response effort within 24 h of acquisition. The high temporal frequency and independence of the data from cloud-free skies makes GM data a viable tool for mapping flood waters during those periods where optical satellite data are unavailable, which may be crucial to rapid response disaster planning, where thousands of lives are affected. Image differencing techniques are used, with pre-flood baseline image backscatter values being deducted from target values to eliminate regions with a permanent flood-like radar response due to volume scattering and attenuation, and to highlight the low response caused by specular reflection by open flood water. The effect of local incidence angle on the received signal is mitigated by ensuring that the deducted image is acquired from the same orbit track as the target image. Poor separability of the water class with land in areas beyond the river channels is tackled using a region-growing algorithm which seeks threshold-conformance from seed pixels at the center of the river channels. The resultant mapped extents are tested against MODIS SWIR data where available, with encouraging results.

Spatial Scaling of Global Rainfall and Flood Extremes

Science.gov (United States)

Devineni, Naresh; Lall, Upmanu; Xi, Chen; Ward, Philip

2014-05-01

Floods associated with severe storms are a significant source of risk for property, life and supply chains. These property losses tend to be determined as much by the duration and spatial extent of flooding as by the depth and velocity of inundation. High duration floods are typically induced by persistent rainfall (up to 30 day duration) as seen recently in Thailand, Pakistan, the Ohio and the Mississippi Rivers, France, and Germany. Events related to persistent and recurrent rainfall appear to correspond to the persistence of specific global climate patterns that may be identifiable from global, historical data fields, and also from climate models that project future conditions. In this paper, we investigate the statistical properties of the spatial manifestation of the rainfall exceedances and floods. We present the first ever results on a global analysis of the scaling characteristics of extreme rainfall and flood event duration, volumes and contiguous flooded areas as a result of large scale organization of long duration rainfall events. Results are organized by latitude and with reference to the phases of ENSO, and reveal surprising invariance across latitude. Speculation as to the potential relation to the dynamical factors is presented

Validation of individual and aggregate global flood hazard models for two major floods in Africa.

Science.gov (United States)

Trigg, M.; Bernhofen, M.; Whyman, C.

2017-12-01

A recent intercomparison of global flood hazard models undertaken by the Global Flood Partnership shows that there is an urgent requirement to undertake more validation of the models against flood observations. As part of the intercomparison, the aggregated model dataset resulting from the project was provided as open access data. We compare the individual and aggregated flood extent output from the six global models and test these against two major floods in the African Continent within the last decade, namely severe flooding on the Niger River in Nigeria in 2012, and on the Zambezi River in Mozambique in 2007. We test if aggregating different number and combination of models increases model fit to the observations compared with the individual model outputs. We present results that illustrate some of the challenges of comparing imperfect models with imperfect observations and also that of defining the probability of a real event in order to test standard model output probabilities. Finally, we propose a collective set of open access validation flood events, with associated observational data and descriptions that provide a standard set of tests across different climates and hydraulic conditions.

Prospects for development of unified global flood observation and prediction systems (Invited)

Science.gov (United States)

Lettenmaier, D. P.

2013-12-01

Floods are among the most damaging of natural hazards, with global flood losses in 2011 alone estimated to have exceeded $100B. Historically, flood economic damages have been highest in the developed world (due in part to encroachment on historical flood plains), but loss of life, and human impacts have been greatest in the developing world. However, as the 2011 Thailand floods show, industrializing countries, many of which do not have well developed flood protection systems, are increasingly vulnerable to economic damages as they become more industrialized. At present, unified global flood observation and prediction systems are in their infancy; notwithstanding that global weather forecasting is a mature field. The summary for this session identifies two evolving capabilities that hold promise for development of more sophisticated global flood forecast systems: global hydrologic models and satellite remote sensing (primarily of precipitation, but also of flood inundation). To this I would add the increasing sophistication and accuracy of global precipitation analysis (and forecast) fields from numerical weather prediction models. In this brief overview, I will review progress in all three areas, and especially the evolution of hydrologic data assimilation which integrates modeling and data sources. I will also comment on inter-governmental and inter-agency cooperation, and related issues that have impeded progress in the development and utilization of global flood observation and prediction systems.

A Multi-Scale Flood Monitoring System Based on Fully Automatic MODIS and TerraSAR-X Processing Chains

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Enrico Stein

2013-10-01

Full Text Available A two-component fully automated flood monitoring system is described and evaluated. This is a result of combining two individual flood services that are currently under development at DLR’s (German Aerospace Center Center for Satellite based Crisis Information (ZKI to rapidly support disaster management activities. A first-phase monitoring component of the system systematically detects potential flood events on a continental scale using daily-acquired medium spatial resolution optical data from the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS. A threshold set controls the activation of the second-phase crisis component of the system, which derives flood information at higher spatial detail using a Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR based satellite mission (TerraSAR-X. The proposed activation procedure finds use in the identification of flood situations in different spatial resolutions and in the time-critical and on demand programming of SAR satellite acquisitions at an early stage of an evolving flood situation. The automated processing chains of the MODIS (MFS and the TerraSAR-X Flood Service (TFS include data pre-processing, the computation and adaptation of global auxiliary data, thematic classification, and the subsequent dissemination of flood maps using an interactive web-client. The system is operationally demonstrated and evaluated via the monitoring two recent flood events in Russia 2013 and Albania/Montenegro 2013.

What can('t) we do with global flood risk models?

Science.gov (United States)

Ward, Philip; Jongman, Brenden; Salamon, Peter; Simpson, Alanna; Winsemius, Hessel

2015-04-01

In recent years, several global scale flood risk models have become available. Within the scientific community these have been, and are being, used to assess and map the current levels of risk faced by countries and societies. Increasingly, they are also being used to assess how that level of risk may change in the future, under scenarios of climate change and/or socioeconomic development. More and more, these 'quick and not so dirty' methods are also being used in practice, for a large range of uses and applications, and by an increasing range of practitioners and decision makers. For example, assessments can be used by: International Financing Institutes for prioritising investments in the most promising natural disaster risk reduction measures and strategies; intra-national institutes in the monitoring of progress on risk reduction activities; the (re-)insurance industry in assessing their risk portfolios and potential changes in those portfolios under climate change; by multinational companies in assessing risks to their regional investments and supply chains; and by international aid organisations for improved resource planning. However, global scale flood risk models clearly have their limits, and therefore both modellers and users need to critically address the question 'What can('t) we do with global flood risk models?'. This contribution is intended to start a dialogue between model developers, users, and decision makers to better answer this question. We will provide a number of examples of how the GLOFRIS global flood risk model has recently been used in several practical applications, and share both the positive and negative insights gained through these experiences. We wish to discuss similar experiences with other groups of modelers, users, and decision-makers, in order to better understand and harness the potential of this new generation of models, understand the differences in model approaches followed and their impacts on applicability, and develop

Flood Inundation Modelling Under Uncertainty Using Globally and Freely Available Remote Sensing Data

Science.gov (United States)

Yan, K.; Di Baldassarre, G.; Giustarini, L.; Solomatine, D. P.

2012-04-01

The extreme consequences of recent catastrophic events have highlighted that flood risk prevention still needs to be improved to reduce human losses and economic damages, which have considerably increased worldwide in recent years. Flood risk management and long term floodplain planning are vital for living with floods, which is the currently proposed approach to cope with floods. To support the decision making processes, a significant issue is the availability of data to build appropriate and reliable models, from which the needed information could be obtained. The desirable data for model building, calibration and validation are often not sufficient or available. A unique opportunity is offered nowadays by globally available data which can be freely downloaded from internet. This might open new opportunities for filling the gap between available and needed data, in order to build reliable models and potentially lead to the development of global inundation models to produce floodplain maps for the entire globe. However, there remains the question of what is the real potential of those global remote sensing data, characterized by different accuracy, for global inundation monitoring and how to integrate them with inundation models. This research aims at contributing to understand whether the current globally and freely available remote sensing data (e.g. SRTM, SAR) can be actually used to appropriately support inundation modelling. In this study, the SRTM DEM is used for hydraulic model building, while ENVISAT-ASAR satellite imagery is used for model validation. To test the usefulness of these globally and freely available data, a model based on the high resolution LiDAR DEM and ground data (high water marks) is used as benchmark. The work is carried out on a data-rich test site: the River Alzette in the north of Luxembourg City. Uncertainties are estimated for both SRTM and LiDAR based models. Probabilistic flood inundation maps are produced under the framework of

ENSO impacts on flood risk at the global scale

Science.gov (United States)

Ward, Philip; Dettinger, Michael; Jongman, Brenden; Kummu, Matti; Winsemius, Hessel

2014-05-01

We present the impacts of El Niño Southern Oscillation (ENSO) on society and the economy, via relationships between ENSO and the hydrological cycle. We also discuss ways in which this knowledge can be used in disaster risk management and risk reduction. This contribution provides the most recent results of an ongoing 4-year collaborative research initiative to assess and map the impacts of large scale interannual climate variability on flood hazard and risk at the global scale. We have examined anomalies in flood risk between ENSO phases, whereby flood risk is expressed in terms of indicators such as: annual expected damage; annual expected affected population; annual expected affected Gross Domestic Product (GDP). We show that large anomalies in flood risk occur during El Niño or La Niña years in basins covering large parts of the Earth's surface. These anomalies reach statistical significance river basins covering almost two-thirds of the Earth's surface. Particularly strong anomalies exist in southern Africa, parts of western Africa, Australia, parts of Central Eurasia (especially for El Niño), the western USA (especially La Niña anomalies), and parts of South America. We relate these anomalies to possible causal relationships between ENSO and flood hazard, using both modelled and observed data on flood occurrence and extremity. The implications for flood risk management are many-fold. In those regions where disaster risk is strongly influenced by ENSO, the potential predictably of ENSO could be used to develop probabilistic flood risk projections with lead times up to several seasons. Such data could be used by the insurance industry in managing risk portfolios and by multinational companies for assessing the robustness of their supply chains to potential flood-related interruptions. Seasonal forecasts of ENSO influence of peak flows could also allow for improved flood early warning and regulation by dam operators, which could also reduce overall risks

What can'(t) we do with global flood risk models?

Science.gov (United States)

Ward, P.; Jongman, B.; Salamon, P.; Simpson, A.; Bates, P. D.; de Groeve, T.; Muis, S.; Coughlan, E.; Rudari, R.; Trigg, M. A.; Winsemius, H.

2015-12-01

Global flood risk models are now a reality. Initially, their development was driven by a demand from users for first-order global assessments to identify risk hotspots. Relentless upward trends in flood damage over the last decade have enhanced interest in such assessments. The adoption of the Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction and the Warsaw International Mechanism for Loss and Damage Associated with Climate Change Impacts have made these efforts even more essential. As a result, global flood risk models are being used more and more in practice, by an increasingly large number of practitioners and decision-makers. However, they clearly have their limits compared to local models. To address these issues, a team of scientists and practitioners recently came together at the Global Flood Partnership meeting to critically assess the question 'What can('t) we do with global flood risk models?'. The results of this dialogue (Ward et al., 2013) will be presented, opening a discussion on similar broader initiatives at the science-policy interface in other natural hazards. In this contribution, examples are provided of successful applications of global flood risk models in practice (for example together with the World Bank, Red Cross, and UNISDR), and limitations and gaps between user 'wish-lists' and model capabilities are discussed. Finally, a research agenda is presented for addressing these limitations and reducing the gaps. Ward, P.J. et al., 2015. Nature Climate Change, doi:10.1038/nclimate2742.

Assessing the value of the ATL13 inland water level product for the Global Flood Partnership

Science.gov (United States)

Schumann, G.; Pappenberger, F.; Bates, P. D.; Neal, J. C.; Jasinski, M. F.

2015-12-01

This paper reports on the activities and first results of an our ICESat-2 Early Adopter (EA) project for inland water observations. Our team will assess the value of the ICESat-2 water level product using two flood model use cases, one over the California Bay Delta and one over the Niger Inland Delta. Application of the ALT13 product into routine operations will be ensured via an ALT13 database integrated into the pillar "Global Flood Service and Toolbox" (GFST) of the Global Flood Partnership (GFP). GFP is a cooperation framework between scientific organizations and flood disaster managers worldwide to develop flood observational and modelling infrastructure, leveraging on existing initiatives for better predicting and managing flood disaster impacts and flood risk globally. GFP is hosted as an Expert Working Group by the Global Disaster Alert and Coordination System (GDACS). The objective of this EA project is to make the ICESat-2 water level data available to the international GFP community. The EA team believes that the ALT13 product, after successful demonstration of its value in model calibration/validation and monitoring of large floodplain inundation dynamics, should be made easily accessible to the GFP. The GFST will host data outputs and tools from different flood models and for different applications and regions. All these models can benefit from ALT13 if made available to GFP through GFST. Here, we will introduce both test cases and their model setups and report on first preliminary "capabilities" test runs with the Niger model and ICESat-1 as well as radar altimeter data. Based on our results, we will also reflect on expected capabilities and potential of the ICESat-2 mission for river observations.

A Seamless Framework for Global Water Cycle Monitoring and Prediction

Science.gov (United States)

Sheffield, J.; Wood, E. F.; Chaney, N.; Fisher, C. K.; Caylor, K. K.

2013-12-01

The Global Earth Observation System of Systems (GEOSS) Water Strategy ('From Observations to Decisions') recognizes that 'water is essential for ensuring food and energy security, for facilitating poverty reduction and health security, and for the maintenance of ecosystems and biodiversity', and that water cycle data and observations are critical for improved water management and water security - especially in less developed regions. The GEOSS Water Strategy has articulated a number of goals for improved water management, including flood and drought preparedness, that include: (i) facilitating the use of Earth Observations for water cycle observations; (ii) facilitating the acquisition, processing, and distribution of data products needed for effective management; (iii) providing expertise, information systems, and datasets to the global, regional, and national water communities. There are several challenges that must be met to advance our capability to provide near real-time water cycle monitoring, early warning of hydrological hazards (floods and droughts) and risk assessment under climate change, regionally and globally. Current approaches to monitoring and predicting hydrological hazards are limited in many parts of the world, and especially in developing countries where national capacity is limited and monitoring networks are inadequate. This presentation describes the development of a seamless monitoring and prediction framework at all time scales that allows for consistent assessment of water variability from historic to current conditions, and from seasonal and decadal predictions to climate change projections. At the center of the framework is an experimental, global water cycle monitoring and seasonal forecast system that has evolved out of regional and continental systems for the US and Africa. The system is based on land surface hydrological modeling that is driven by satellite remote sensing precipitation to predict current hydrological conditions

Integration of Grid and Sensor Web for Flood Monitoring and Risk Assessment from Heterogeneous Data

Science.gov (United States)

Kussul, Nataliia; Skakun, Sergii; Shelestov, Andrii

2013-04-01

Over last decades we have witnessed the upward global trend in natural disaster occurrence. Hydrological and meteorological disasters such as floods are the main contributors to this pattern. In recent years flood management has shifted from protection against floods to managing the risks of floods (the European Flood risk directive). In order to enable operational flood monitoring and assessment of flood risk, it is required to provide an infrastructure with standardized interfaces and services. Grid and Sensor Web can meet these requirements. In this paper we present a general approach to flood monitoring and risk assessment based on heterogeneous geospatial data acquired from multiple sources. To enable operational flood risk assessment integration of Grid and Sensor Web approaches is proposed [1]. Grid represents a distributed environment that integrates heterogeneous computing and storage resources administrated by multiple organizations. SensorWeb is an emerging paradigm for integrating heterogeneous satellite and in situ sensors and data systems into a common informational infrastructure that produces products on demand. The basic Sensor Web functionality includes sensor discovery, triggering events by observed or predicted conditions, remote data access and processing capabilities to generate and deliver data products. Sensor Web is governed by the set of standards, called Sensor Web Enablement (SWE), developed by the Open Geospatial Consortium (OGC). Different practical issues regarding integration of Sensor Web with Grids are discussed in the study. We show how the Sensor Web can benefit from using Grids and vice versa. For example, Sensor Web services such as SOS, SPS and SAS can benefit from the integration with the Grid platform like Globus Toolkit. The proposed approach is implemented within the Sensor Web framework for flood monitoring and risk assessment, and a case-study of exploiting this framework, namely the Namibia SensorWeb Pilot Project, is

Assessing flood risk at the global scale: model setup, results, and sensitivity

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Ward, Philip J; Jongman, Brenden; Weiland, Frederiek Sperna; Winsemius, Hessel C; Bouwman, Arno; Ligtvoet, Willem; Van Beek, Rens; Bierkens, Marc F P

2013-01-01

Globally, economic losses from flooding exceeded $19 billion in 2012, and are rising rapidly. Hence, there is an increasing need for global-scale flood risk assessments, also within the context of integrated global assessments. We have developed and validated a model cascade for producing global flood risk maps, based on numerous flood return-periods. Validation results indicate that the model simulates interannual fluctuations in flood impacts well. The cascade involves: hydrological and hydraulic modelling; extreme value statistics; inundation modelling; flood impact modelling; and estimating annual expected impacts. The initial results estimate global impacts for several indicators, for example annual expected exposed population (169 million); and annual expected exposed GDP ($1383 billion). These results are relatively insensitive to the extreme value distribution employed to estimate low frequency flood volumes. However, they are extremely sensitive to the assumed flood protection standard; developing a database of such standards should be a research priority. Also, results are sensitive to the use of two different climate forcing datasets. The impact model can easily accommodate new, user-defined, impact indicators. We envisage several applications, for example: identifying risk hotspots; calculating macro-scale risk for the insurance industry and large companies; and assessing potential benefits (and costs) of adaptation measures. (letter)

A Cloud-Based Global Flood Disaster Community Cyber-Infrastructure: Development and Demonstration

Science.gov (United States)

Wan, Zhanming; Hong, Yang; Khan, Sadiq; Gourley, Jonathan; Flamig, Zachary; Kirschbaum, Dalia; Tang, Guoqiang

2014-01-01

Flood disasters have significant impacts on the development of communities globally. This study describes a public cloud-based flood cyber-infrastructure (CyberFlood) that collects, organizes, visualizes, and manages several global flood databases for authorities and the public in real-time, providing location-based eventful visualization as well as statistical analysis and graphing capabilities. In order to expand and update the existing flood inventory, a crowdsourcing data collection methodology is employed for the public with smartphones or Internet to report new flood events, which is also intended to engage citizen-scientists so that they may become motivated and educated about the latest developments in satellite remote sensing and hydrologic modeling technologies. Our shared vision is to better serve the global water community with comprehensive flood information, aided by the state-of-the- art cloud computing and crowdsourcing technology. The CyberFlood presents an opportunity to eventually modernize the existing paradigm used to collect, manage, analyze, and visualize water-related disasters.

Global river flood hazard maps: hydraulic modelling methods and appropriate uses

Science.gov (United States)

Townend, Samuel; Smith, Helen; Molloy, James

2014-05-01

Flood hazard is not well understood or documented in many parts of the world. Consequently, the (re-)insurance sector now needs to better understand where the potential for considerable river flooding aligns with significant exposure. For example, international manufacturing companies are often attracted to countries with emerging economies, meaning that events such as the 2011 Thailand floods have resulted in many multinational businesses with assets in these regions incurring large, unexpected losses. This contribution addresses and critically evaluates the hydraulic methods employed to develop a consistent global scale set of river flood hazard maps, used to fill the knowledge gap outlined above. The basis of the modelling approach is an innovative, bespoke 1D/2D hydraulic model (RFlow) which has been used to model a global river network of over 5.3 million kilometres. Estimated flood peaks at each of these model nodes are determined using an empirically based rainfall-runoff approach linking design rainfall to design river flood magnitudes. The hydraulic model is used to determine extents and depths of floodplain inundation following river bank overflow. From this, deterministic flood hazard maps are calculated for several design return periods between 20-years and 1,500-years. Firstly, we will discuss the rationale behind the appropriate hydraulic modelling methods and inputs chosen to produce a consistent global scaled river flood hazard map. This will highlight how a model designed to work with global datasets can be more favourable for hydraulic modelling at the global scale and why using innovative techniques customised for broad scale use are preferable to modifying existing hydraulic models. Similarly, the advantages and disadvantages of both 1D and 2D modelling will be explored and balanced against the time, computer and human resources available, particularly when using a Digital Surface Model at 30m resolution. Finally, we will suggest some

Typhoon Doksuri Flooding in 2017 - High-Resolution Inundation Mapping and Monitoring from Sentinel Satellite SAR Data

Science.gov (United States)

Nghiem, S. V.; Nguyen, D. T.

2017-12-01

In 2017, typhoons and hurricanes have inflicted catastrophic flooding across extensive regions in many countries on several continents, including Asia and North America. The U.S. Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) requested urgent support for flood mapping and monitoring in an emergency response to the devastating flood situation. An innovative satellite remote sensing method, called the Depolarization Reduction Algorithm for Global Observations of inundatioN (DRAGON), has been developed and implemented for use with Sentinel synthetic aperture radar (SAR) satellite data at a resolution of 10 meters to identify, map, and monitor inundation including pre-existing water bodies and newly flooded areas. Because Sentinel SAR operates at C-band microwave frequency, it can be used for flood mapping regardless of could cover conditions typically associated with storms, and thus can provide immediate results without the need to wait for the clouds to clear out. In Southeast Asia, Typhoon Doksuri caused significant flooding across extensive regions in Vietnam and other countries in September 2017. Figure 1 presents the flood mapping result over a region around Hà Tĩnh (north central coast of Vietnam) showing flood inundated areas (in yellow) on 16 September 2017 together with pre-existing surface water (in blue) on 4 September 2017. This is just one example selected from a larger flood map covering an extensive region of about 250 km x 680 km all along the central coast of Vietnam.

Decision Support for Flood Event Prediction and Monitoring

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Mioc, Darka; Anton, François; Liang, Gengsheng

2007-01-01

In this paper the development of Web GIS based decision support system for flood events is presented. To improve flood prediction we developed the decision support system for flood prediction and monitoring that integrates hydrological modelling and CARIS GIS. We present the methodology for data...... integration, floodplain delineation, and online map interfaces. Our Web-based GIS model can dynamically display observed and predicted flood extents for decision makers and the general public. The users can access Web-based GIS that models current flood events and displays satellite imagery and digital...... elevation model integrated with flood plain area. The system can show how the flooding prediction based on the output from hydrological modeling for the next 48 hours along the lower Saint John River Valley....

Real-time flood monitoring and warning system

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Jirapon Sunkpho

2011-04-01

Full Text Available Flooding is one of the major disasters occurring in various parts of the world. The system for real-time monitoring ofwater conditions: water level; flow; and precipitation level, was developed to be employed in monitoring flood in Nakhon SiThammarat, a southern province in Thailand. The two main objectives of the developed system is to serve 1 as informationchannel for flooding between the involved authorities and experts to enhance their responsibilities and collaboration and2 as a web based information source for the public, responding to their need for information on water condition and flooding.The developed system is composed of three major components: sensor network, processing/transmission unit, and database/application server. These real-time data of water condition can be monitored remotely by utilizing wireless sensors networkthat utilizes the mobile General Packet Radio Service (GPRS communication in order to transmit measured data to theapplication server. We implemented a so-called VirtualCOM, a middleware that enables application server to communicatewith the remote sensors connected to a GPRS data unit (GDU. With VirtualCOM, a GDU behaves as if it is a cable directlyconnected the remote sensors to the application server. The application server is a web-based system implemented usingPHP and JAVA as the web application and MySQL as its relational database. Users can view real-time water conditionas well as the forecasting of the water condition directly from the web via web browser or via WAP. The developed systemhas demonstrated the applicability of today’s sensors in wirelessly monitor real-time water conditions.

The credibility challenge for global fluvial flood risk analysis

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Trigg, M.A.; Birch, C.E.; Neal, J.C.; Bates, P.D.; Smith, A.; Sampson, C.C.; Yamazaki, D.; Hirabayashi, Y.; Pappenberger, F.; Dutra, E.; Ward, P.J.; Winsemius, H.C.; Salamon, P.; Dottori, F.; Rudari, R.; Kappes, M.S.; Simpson, A.L.; Hadzilacos, G.; Fewtrell, T.J.

2016-01-01

Quantifying flood hazard is an essential component of resilience planning, emergency response, and mitigation, including insurance. Traditionally undertaken at catchment and national scales, recently, efforts have intensified to estimate flood risk globally to better allow consistent and equitable

Declining vulnerability to river floods and the global benefits of adaptation.

Science.gov (United States)

Jongman, Brenden; Winsemius, Hessel C; Aerts, Jeroen C J H; Coughlan de Perez, Erin; van Aalst, Maarten K; Kron, Wolfgang; Ward, Philip J

2015-05-05

The global impacts of river floods are substantial and rising. Effective adaptation to the increasing risks requires an in-depth understanding of the physical and socioeconomic drivers of risk. Whereas the modeling of flood hazard and exposure has improved greatly, compelling evidence on spatiotemporal patterns in vulnerability of societies around the world is still lacking. Due to this knowledge gap, the effects of vulnerability on global flood risk are not fully understood, and future projections of fatalities and losses available today are based on simplistic assumptions or do not include vulnerability. We show for the first time (to our knowledge) that trends and fluctuations in vulnerability to river floods around the world can be estimated by dynamic high-resolution modeling of flood hazard and exposure. We find that rising per-capita income coincided with a global decline in vulnerability between 1980 and 2010, which is reflected in decreasing mortality and losses as a share of the people and gross domestic product exposed to inundation. The results also demonstrate that vulnerability levels in low- and high-income countries have been converging, due to a relatively strong trend of vulnerability reduction in developing countries. Finally, we present projections of flood losses and fatalities under 100 individual scenario and model combinations, and three possible global vulnerability scenarios. The projections emphasize that materialized flood risk largely results from human behavior and that future risk increases can be largely contained using effective disaster risk reduction strategies.

Flood scour monitoring system using fiber Bragg grating sensors

Science.gov (United States)

Lin, Yung Bin; Lai, Jihn Sung; Chang, Kuo Chun; Li, Lu Sheng

2006-12-01

The exposure and subsequent undermining of pier/abutment foundations through the scouring action of a flood can result in the structural failure of a bridge. Bridge scour is one of the leading causes of bridge failure. Bridges subject to periods of flood/high flow require monitoring during those times in order to protect the traveling public. In this study, an innovative scour monitoring system using button-like fiber Bragg grating (FBG) sensors was developed and applied successfully in the field during the Aere typhoon period in 2004. The in situ FBG scour monitoring system has been demonstrated to be robust and reliable for real-time scour-depth measurements, and to be valid for indicating depositional depth at the Dadu Bridge. The field results show that this system can function well and survive a typhoon flood.

Testing an innovative framework for flood forecasting, monitoring and mapping in Europe

Science.gov (United States)

Dottori, Francesco; Kalas, Milan; Lorini, Valerio; Wania, Annett; Pappenberger, Florian; Salamon, Peter; Ramos, Maria Helena; Cloke, Hannah; Castillo, Carlos

2017-04-01

Between May and June 2016, France was hit by severe floods, particularly in the Loire and Seine river basins. In this work, we use this case study to test an innovative framework for flood forecasting, mapping and monitoring. More in detail, the system integrates in real-time two components of the Copernicus Emergency mapping services, namely the European Flood Awareness System and the satellite-based Rapid Mapping, with new procedures for rapid risk assessment and social media and news monitoring. We explore in detail the performance of each component of the system, demonstrating the improvements in respect to stand-alone flood forecasting and monitoring systems. We show how the performances of the forecasting component can be refined using the real-time feedback from social media monitoring to identify which areas were flooded, to evaluate the flood intensity, and therefore to correct impact estimations. Moreover, we show how the integration with impact forecast and social media monitoring can improve the timeliness and efficiency of satellite based emergency mapping, and reduce the chances of missing areas where flooding is already happening. These results illustrate how the new integrated approach leads to a better and earlier decision making and a timely evaluation of impacts.

Quantitative monitoring of gas flooding in oil-bearing reservoirs using a pulsed neutron tool

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Ruhovets, N.; Wyatt, D.F. Jr.

1991-01-01

This paper reports on quantitative monitoring of gas flooding in oil bearing reservoirs which is unique in that saturations of three fluids (gas, oil and water) in the effective pore space have to be determined, while in most other applications saturation behind casing is determined only for two fluids: hydrocarbons and water. A new method has been developed to monitor gas flooding of oil reservoirs. The method is based on computing two porosities: true effective (base) porosity determined before gas flooding, and apparent effective (monitor) porosity determined after gas flooding. The base porosity is determined from open and/or cased hole porosity logs run before the flooding. When open hole logs are available, the cased hole porosity logs are calibrated against open hole log. The monitor porosity is determined from one of the cased hole porosity logs, such as a neutron log or count rate ratio curve from a pulsed neutron log run after the gas flooding. The base and monitor porosities provide determination of the hydrogen index of the reservoir fluid after the flooding. This hydrogen index is then used to determine saturation of the flood agent after flooding. Water saturation after flooding can be determined from the equation which relates neutron total cross section (Σm) to volumetric constituent cross sections, using Σm values from a monitor run (after flooding)

Developing a Global Database of Historic Flood Events to Support Machine Learning Flood Prediction in Google Earth Engine

Science.gov (United States)

Tellman, B.; Sullivan, J.; Kettner, A.; Brakenridge, G. R.; Slayback, D. A.; Kuhn, C.; Doyle, C.

2016-12-01

There is an increasing need to understand flood vulnerability as the societal and economic effects of flooding increases. Risk models from insurance companies and flood models from hydrologists must be calibrated based on flood observations in order to make future predictions that can improve planning and help societies reduce future disasters. Specifically, to improve these models both traditional methods of flood prediction from physically based models as well as data-driven techniques, such as machine learning, require spatial flood observation to validate model outputs and quantify uncertainty. A key dataset that is missing for flood model validation is a global historical geo-database of flood event extents. Currently, the most advanced database of historical flood extent is hosted and maintained at the Dartmouth Flood Observatory (DFO) that has catalogued 4320 floods (1985-2015) but has only mapped 5% of these floods. We are addressing this data gap by mapping the inventory of floods in the DFO database to create a first-of- its-kind, comprehensive, global and historical geospatial database of flood events. To do so, we combine water detection algorithms on MODIS and Landsat 5,7 and 8 imagery in Google Earth Engine to map discrete flood events. The created database will be available in the Earth Engine Catalogue for download by country, region, or time period. This dataset can be leveraged for new data-driven hydrologic modeling using machine learning algorithms in Earth Engine's highly parallelized computing environment, and we will show examples for New York and Senegal.

GSM and web-based flood monitoring system

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Pagatpat, J C; Arellano, A C; Gerasta, O J

2015-01-01

The purpose of this project is to develop a local real-time river flood monitoring and warning system for the selected communities near Mandulog River. This study focuses only on the detection and early warning alert system (via website and/or cell phone text messages) that alerts local subscribers of potential flood events. Furthermore, this system is interactive wherein all non-registered subscribers could inquire the actual water level of the desired area location they want to monitor. An estimated time a particular river waterway will overflow is also included in the analyses. The hardware used in the design is split into several parts namely: the water level detector, GSM module, and microcontroller development board. (paper)

Rapid Global River Flood Risk Assessment under Climate and Socioeconomic Scenarios: An Extreme Case of Eurasian region

Science.gov (United States)

Kwak, Young-joo; Magome, Jun; Hasegawa, Akira; Iwami, Yoichi

2017-04-01

Causing widespread devastation with massive economic damage and loss of human lives, flood disasters hamper economic growth and accelerate poverty particularly in developing countries. Globally, this trend will likely continue due to increase in flood magnitude and lack of preparedness for extreme events. In line with risk reduction efforts since the early 21st century, the monitors and governors of global river floods should pay attention to international scientific and policy communities for support to facilitate evidence-based policy making with a special interest in long-term changes due to climate change and socio-economic effects. Although advanced hydrological inundation models and risk models have been developed to reveal flood risk, hazard, exposure, and vulnerability at a river basin, it is obviously hard to identify the distribution and locations of continent-level flood risk based on national-level data. Therefore, we propose a methodological possibility for rapid global flood risk assessment with the results from its application to the two periods, i.e., Present (from 1980 to 2004) and Future (from 2075 to 2099). The method is particularly designed to effectively simplify complexities of a hazard area by calculating the differential inundation depth using GFID2M (global flood inundation depth 2-dimension model), despite low data availability. In this research, we addressed the question of which parts in the Eurasian region (8E to 180E, 0N to 60N) can be found as high-risk areas in terms of exposed population and economy in case of a 50-year return period flood. Economic losses were estimated according to the Shared Socioeconomic Pathways (SSP) scenario, and the flood scale was defined using the annual maximum daily river discharge under the extreme conditions of climate change simulated with MRI-AGCM3.2S based on the Representative Concentration Pathways (RCP8.5) emissions scenario. As a preliminary result, the total potential economic loss in the

Hydrometeorological network for flood monitoring and modeling

Science.gov (United States)

Efstratiadis, Andreas; Koussis, Antonis D.; Lykoudis, Spyros; Koukouvinos, Antonis; Christofides, Antonis; Karavokiros, George; Kappos, Nikos; Mamassis, Nikos; Koutsoyiannis, Demetris

2013-08-01

Due to its highly fragmented geomorphology, Greece comprises hundreds of small- to medium-size hydrological basins, in which often the terrain is fairly steep and the streamflow regime ephemeral. These are typically affected by flash floods, occasionally causing severe damages. Yet, the vast majority of them lack flow-gauging infrastructure providing systematic hydrometric data at fine time scales. This has obvious impacts on the quality and reliability of flood studies, which typically use simplistic approaches for ungauged basins that do not consider local peculiarities in sufficient detail. In order to provide a consistent framework for flood design and to ensure realistic predictions of the flood risk -a key issue of the 2007/60/EC Directive- it is essential to improve the monitoring infrastructures by taking advantage of modern technologies for remote control and data management. In this context and in the research project DEUCALION, we have recently installed and are operating, in four pilot river basins, a telemetry-based hydro-meteorological network that comprises automatic stations and is linked to and supported by relevant software. The hydrometric stations measure stage, using 50-kHz ultrasonic pulses or piezometric sensors, or both stage (piezometric) and velocity via acoustic Doppler radar; all measurements are being temperature-corrected. The meteorological stations record air temperature, pressure, relative humidity, wind speed and direction, and precipitation. Data transfer is made via GPRS or mobile telephony modems. The monitoring network is supported by a web-based application for storage, visualization and management of geographical and hydro-meteorological data (ENHYDRIS), a software tool for data analysis and processing (HYDROGNOMON), as well as an advanced model for flood simulation (HYDROGEIOS). The recorded hydro-meteorological observations are accessible over the Internet through the www-application. The system is operational and its

Global assessment of river flood protection benefits and corresponding residual risks under climate change

Science.gov (United States)

Lim, Wee Ho; Yamazaki, Dai; Koirala, Sujan; Hirabayashi, Yukiko; Kanae, Shinjiro; Dadson, Simon J.; Hall, Jim W.

2016-04-01

Global warming increases the water-holding capacity of the atmosphere and this could lead to more intense rainfalls and possibly increasing natural hazards in the form of flooding in some regions. This implies that traditional practice of using historical hydrological records alone is somewhat limited for supporting long-term water infrastructure planning. This has motivated recent global scale studies to evaluate river flood risks (e.g., Hirabayashi et al., 2013, Arnell and Gosling, 2014, Sadoff et al., 2015) and adaptations benefits (e.g., Jongman et al., 2015). To support decision-making in river flood risk reduction, this study takes a further step to examine the benefits and corresponding residual risks for a range of flood protection levels. To do that, we channelled runoff information of a baseline period (forced by observed hydroclimate conditions) and each CMIP5 model (historic and future periods) into a global river routing model called CaMa-Flood (Yamazaki et al., 2011). We incorporated the latest global river width data (Yamazaki et al., 2014) into CaMa-Flood and simulate the river water depth at a spatial resolution of 15 min x 15 min. From the simulated results of baseline period, we use the annual maxima river water depth to fit the Gumbel distribution and prepare the return period-flood risk relationship (involving population and GDP). From the simulated results of CMIP5 model, we also used the annual maxima river water depth to obtain the Gumbel distribution and then estimate the exceedance probability (historic and future periods). We apply the return period-flood risk relationship (above) to the exceedance probability and evaluate the flood protection benefits. We quantify the corresponding residual risks using a mathematical approach that is consistent with the modelling structure of CaMa-Flood. Globally and regionally, we find that the benefits of flood protection level peak somewhere between 20 and 500 years; residual risks diminish

Quantifying the effect of autonomous adaptation to global river flood projections: application to future flood risk assessments

Science.gov (United States)

Kinoshita, Youhei; Tanoue, Masahiro; Watanabe, Satoshi; Hirabayashi, Yukiko

2018-01-01

This study represents the first attempt to quantify the effects of autonomous adaptation on the projection of global flood hazards and to assess future flood risk by including this effect. A vulnerability scenario, which varies according to the autonomous adaptation effect for conventional disaster mitigation efforts, was developed based on historical vulnerability values derived from flood damage records and a river inundation simulation. Coupled with general circulation model outputs and future socioeconomic scenarios, potential future flood fatalities and economic loss were estimated. By including the effect of autonomous adaptation, our multimodel ensemble estimates projected a 2.0% decrease in potential flood fatalities and an 821% increase in potential economic losses by 2100 under the highest emission scenario together with a large population increase. Vulnerability changes reduced potential flood consequences by 64%-72% in terms of potential fatalities and 28%-42% in terms of potential economic losses by 2100. Although socioeconomic changes made the greatest contribution to the potential increased consequences of future floods, about a half of the increase of potential economic losses was mitigated by autonomous adaptation. There is a clear and positive relationship between the global temperature increase from the pre-industrial level and the estimated mean potential flood economic loss, while there is a negative relationship with potential fatalities due to the autonomous adaptation effect. A bootstrapping analysis suggests a significant increase in potential flood fatalities (+5.7%) without any adaptation if the temperature increases by 1.5 °C-2.0 °C, whereas the increase in potential economic loss (+0.9%) was not significant. Our method enables the effects of autonomous adaptation and additional adaptation efforts on climate-induced hazards to be distinguished, which would be essential for the accurate estimation of the cost of adaptation to

Flood Monitoring and Early Warning System Using Ultrasonic Sensor

Science.gov (United States)

Natividad, J. G.; Mendez, J. M.

2018-03-01

The purpose of this study is to develop a real-time flood monitoring and early warning system in the northern portion of the province of Isabela, particularly the municipalities near Cagayan River. Ultrasonic sensing techniques have become mature and are widely used in the various fields of engineering and basic science. One of advantage of ultrasonic sensing is its outstanding capability to probe inside objective non-destructively because ultrasound can propagate through any kinds of media including solids, liquids and gases. This study focuses only on the water level detection and early warning system (via website and/or SMS) that alerts concern agencies and individuals for a potential flood event. Furthermore, inquiry system is also included in this study to become more interactive wherein individuals in the community could inquire the actual water level and status of the desired area or location affected by flood thru SMS keyword. The study aims in helping citizens to be prepared and knowledgeable whenever there is a flood. The novelty of this work falls under the utilization of the Arduino, ultrasonic sensors, GSM module, web-monitoring and SMS early warning system in helping stakeholders to mitigate casualties related to flood. The paper envisions helping flood-prone areas which are common in the Philippines particularly to the local communities in the province. Indeed, it is relevant and important as per needs for safety and welfare of the community.

Flood modelling with global precipitation measurement (GPM) satellite rainfall data: a case study of Dehradun, Uttarakhand, India

Science.gov (United States)

Sai Krishna, V. V.; Dikshit, Anil Kumar; Pandey, Kamal

2016-05-01

Urban expansion, water bodies and climate change are inextricably linked with each other. The macro and micro level climate changes are leading to extreme precipitation events which have severe consequences on flooding in urban areas. Flood simulations shall be helpful in demarcation of flooded areas and effective flood planning and preparedness. The temporal availability of satellite rainfall data at varying spatial scale of 0.10 to 0.50 is helpful in near real time flood simulations. The present research aims at analysing stream flow and runoff to monitor flood condition using satellite rainfall data in a hydrologic model. The satellite rainfall data used in the research was NASA's Integrated Multi-satellite Retrievals for Global Precipitation Measurement (IMERG), which is available at 30 minutes temporal resolution. Landsat data was used for mapping the water bodies in the study area. Land use land cover (LULC) data was prepared using Landsat 8 data with maximum likelihood technique that was provided as an input to the HEC-HMS hydrological model. The research was applied to one of the urbanized cities of India, viz. Dehradun, which is the capital of Uttarakhand State. The research helped in identifying the flood vulnerability at the basin level on the basis of the runoff and various socio economic parameters using multi criteria analysis.

Innovative solutions in monitoring systems in flood protection

Science.gov (United States)

Sekuła, Klaudia; Połeć, Marzena; Borecka, Aleksandra

2018-02-01

The article presents the possibilities of ISMOP - IT System of Levee Monitoring. This system is able to collecting data from the reference and experimental control and measurement network. The experimental levee is build in a 1:1 scale and located in the village of Czernichow, near Cracow. The innovation is the utilization of a series of sensors monitoring the changes in the body of levee. It can be done by comparing the results of numerical simulations with results from installed two groups of sensors: reference sensors and experimental sensors. The reference control and measurement sensors create network based on pore pressure and temperature sensors. Additionally, it contains the fiber-optic technology. The second network include design experimental sensors, constructed for the development of solutions that can be used in existing flood embankments. The results are important to create the comprehensive and inexpensive monitoring system, which could be helpful for state authorities and local governments in flood protection.

A Novel Dual Traffic/Flash Flood Monitoring System Using Passive Infrared/Ultrasonic Sensors

KAUST Repository

Mousa, Mustafa

2015-10-19

Floods are the most common type of natural disaster, causing thousands of casualties every year. Among these events, urban flash floods are particularly deadly because of the short timescales on which they occur, and because of the high concentration of population in cities. Since most flash flood casualties are caused by a lack of information, it is critical to generate accurate and detailed warnings of flash floods. However, deploying an infrastructure that solely monitor flash floods makes little economic sense, since the average periodicity of catastrophic flash floods exceeds the lifetime of a typical sensor network. To address this issue, we propose a new sensing device that can simultaneously monitor urban flash floods and another phenomenon of interest (traffic congestion on the present case). This sensing device is based on the combination of an ultrasonic rangefinder with one or multiple remote temperature sensors. We show an implementation of this device, and illustrate its performance in both traffic flow and flash flood sensing. Field data shows that the sensor can detect vehicles with a 99% accuracy, in addition to estimating their speed and classifying them in function of their length. The same sensor can also monitor urban water levels with an accuracy of less than 2 cm. Two of the sensors have been deployed in a flood prone area, where they captured the only (minor) flash flood that occurred over the one-year test period, with no false detection, and an agreement in the estimated water level estimate (during the flash flood event) of about 2 cm.

A Novel Dual Traffic/Flash Flood Monitoring System Using Passive Infrared/Ultrasonic Sensors

KAUST Repository

Mousa, Mustafa; Odat, Enas M.; Claudel, Christian

2015-01-01

Floods are the most common type of natural disaster, causing thousands of casualties every year. Among these events, urban flash floods are particularly deadly because of the short timescales on which they occur, and because of the high concentration of population in cities. Since most flash flood casualties are caused by a lack of information, it is critical to generate accurate and detailed warnings of flash floods. However, deploying an infrastructure that solely monitor flash floods makes little economic sense, since the average periodicity of catastrophic flash floods exceeds the lifetime of a typical sensor network. To address this issue, we propose a new sensing device that can simultaneously monitor urban flash floods and another phenomenon of interest (traffic congestion on the present case). This sensing device is based on the combination of an ultrasonic rangefinder with one or multiple remote temperature sensors. We show an implementation of this device, and illustrate its performance in both traffic flow and flash flood sensing. Field data shows that the sensor can detect vehicles with a 99% accuracy, in addition to estimating their speed and classifying them in function of their length. The same sensor can also monitor urban water levels with an accuracy of less than 2 cm. Two of the sensors have been deployed in a flood prone area, where they captured the only (minor) flash flood that occurred over the one-year test period, with no false detection, and an agreement in the estimated water level estimate (during the flash flood event) of about 2 cm.

Global off-line evaluation of the ISBA-TRIP flood model

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Decharme, B.; Alkama, R.; Faroux, S.; Douville, H. [GAME-CNRM/CNRS - Meteo-France, Toulouse (France); Papa, F. [NOAA-CREST, City College of New York, New York, NY (United States); Institut de Recherche pour le Developpement IRD-LEGOS, Toulouse (France); Prigent, C. [CNRS/Laboratoire d' Etudes du Rayonnement et de la Matiere en Astrophysique, Observatoire de Paris, Paris (France)

2012-04-15

This study presents an off-line global evaluation of the ISBA-TRIP hydrological model including a two-way flood scheme. The flood dynamics is indeed described through the daily coupling between the ISBA land surface model and the TRIP river routing model including a prognostic flood reservoir. This reservoir fills when the river height exceeds the critical river bankfull height and vice versa. The flood interacts with the soil hydrology through infiltration and with the overlying atmosphere through precipitation interception and free water surface evaporation. The model is evaluated over a relatively long period (1986-2006) at 1 resolution using the Princeton University 3-hourly atmospheric forcing. Four simulations are performed in order to assess the model sensitivity to the river bankfull height. The evaluation is made against satellite-derived global inundation estimates as well as in situ river discharge observations at 122 gauging stations. First, the results show a reasonable simulation of the global distribution of simulated floodplains when compared to satellite-derived estimates. At basin scale, the comparison reveals some discrepancies, both in terms of climatology and interannual variability, but the results remain acceptable for a simple large-scale model. In addition, the simulated river discharges are improved in term of efficiency scores for more than 50% of the 122 stations and deteriorated for 4% only. Two mechanisms mainly explain this positive impact: an increase in evapotranspiration that limits the annual discharge overestimation found when flooding is not taking into account and a smoothed river peak flow when the floodplain storage is significant. Finally, the sensitivity experiments suggest that the river bankfull depth is potentially tunable according to the river discharge scores to control the accuracy of the simulated flooded areas and its related increase in land surface evaporation. Such a tuning could be relevant at least for climate

Flood and Traffic Wireless Monitoring System for Smart Cities

KAUST Repository

Moussa, Mustafa

2016-10-01

The convergence of computation, communication and sensing has led to the emergence of Wireless Sensor Networks (WSNs), which allow distributed monitoring of physical phenomena over extended areas. In this thesis, we focus on a dual flood and traffic flow WSN applicable to urban environments. This fixed sensing system is based on the combination of ultrasonic range-finding with remote temperature sensing, and can sense both phenomena with a high degree of accuracy. This enables the monitoring of urban areas to lessen the impact of catastrophic flood events, by monitoring flood parameters and traffic flow to enable public evacuation and early warning, allocate the resources efficiently or control the traffic to make cities more productive and smarter. We present an implementation of the device, and illustrate its performance in water level estimation and rain detection using a novel combination of L1 regularized reconstruction and machine learning algorithms on a 6-month dataset involving four different sensors. Our results show that water level can be estimated with an uncertainty of 1 cm using a combination of thermal sensing and ultrasonic distance measurements. The demonstration of the performance included the detection of an actual flash flood event using two sensors located in Umm Al Qura University (Mecca). Finally, we show that Lagrangian (mobile) sensors can be used to inexpensively increase the performance of the system with respect to traffic sensing. These sensors are based on Inertial Measurement Units (IMUs), which have never been investigated in the context of traffic ow monitoring before. We investigate the divergence of the speed estimation process, the lack of the calibration parameters of the system, and the problem of reconstructing vehicle trajectories evolving in a given transportation network. To address these problems, we propose an automatic calibration algorithm applicable to IMU-equipped ground vehicles, and an L1 regularized least squares

A Global Drought and Flood Catalogue for the past 100 years

Science.gov (United States)

Sheffield, J.; He, X.; Peng, L.; Pan, M.; Fisher, C. K.; Wood, E. F.

2017-12-01

Extreme hydrological events cause the most impacts of natural hazards globally, impacting on a wide range of sectors including, most prominently, agriculture, food security and water availability and quality, but also on energy production, forestry, health, transportation and fisheries. Understanding how floods and droughts intersect, and have changed in the past provides the basis for understanding current risk and how it may change in the future. To do this requires an understanding of the mechanisms associated with events and therefore their predictability, attribution of long-term changes in risk, and quantification of projections of changes in the future. Of key importance are long-term records of relevant variables so that risk can be quantified more accurately, given the growing acknowledgement that risk is not stationary under long-term climate variability and climate change. To address this, we develop a catalogue of drought and flood events based on land surface and hydrodynamic modeling, forced by a hybrid meteorological dataset that draws from the continuity and coverage of reanalysis, and satellite datasets, merged with global gauge databases. The meteorological dataset is corrected for temporal inhomogeneities, spurious trends and variable inter-dependencies to ensure long-term consistency, as well as realistic representation of short-term variability and extremes. The VIC land surface model is run for the past 100 years at 0.25-degree resolution for global land areas. The VIC runoff is then used to drive the CaMa-Flood hydrodynamic model to obtain information on flood inundation risk. The model outputs are compared to satellite based estimates of flood and drought conditions and the observational flood record. The data are analyzed in terms of the spatio-temporal characteristics of large-scale flood and drought events with a particular focus on characterizing the long-term variability in risk. Significant changes in risk occur on multi-decadal time

Flood damage curves for consistent global risk assessments

Science.gov (United States)

de Moel, Hans; Huizinga, Jan; Szewczyk, Wojtek

2016-04-01

Assessing potential damage of flood events is an important component in flood risk management. Determining direct flood damage is commonly done using depth-damage curves, which denote the flood damage that would occur at specific water depths per asset or land-use class. Many countries around the world have developed flood damage models using such curves which are based on analysis of past flood events and/or on expert judgement. However, such damage curves are not available for all regions, which hampers damage assessments in those regions. Moreover, due to different methodologies employed for various damage models in different countries, damage assessments cannot be directly compared with each other, obstructing also supra-national flood damage assessments. To address these problems, a globally consistent dataset of depth-damage curves has been developed. This dataset contains damage curves depicting percent of damage as a function of water depth as well as maximum damage values for a variety of assets and land use classes (i.e. residential, commercial, agriculture). Based on an extensive literature survey concave damage curves have been developed for each continent, while differentiation in flood damage between countries is established by determining maximum damage values at the country scale. These maximum damage values are based on construction cost surveys from multinational construction companies, which provide a coherent set of detailed building cost data across dozens of countries. A consistent set of maximum flood damage values for all countries was computed using statistical regressions with socio-economic World Development Indicators from the World Bank. Further, based on insights from the literature survey, guidance is also given on how the damage curves and maximum damage values can be adjusted for specific local circumstances, such as urban vs. rural locations, use of specific building material, etc. This dataset can be used for consistent supra

Multi-Model Projections of River Flood Risk in Europe under Global Warming

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Lorenzo Alfieri

2018-01-01

Full Text Available Knowledge on the costs of natural disasters under climate change is key information for planning adaptation and mitigation strategies of future climate policies. Impact models for large scale flood risk assessment have made leaps forward in the past few years, thanks to the increased availability of high resolution climate projections and of information on local exposure and vulnerability to river floods. Yet, state-of-the-art flood impact models rely on a number of input data and techniques that can substantially influence their results. This work compares estimates of river flood risk in Europe from three recent case studies, assuming global warming scenarios of 1.5, 2, and 3 degrees Celsius from pre-industrial levels. The assessment is based on comparing ensemble projections of expected damage and population affected at country level. Differences and common points between the three cases are shown, to point out main sources of uncertainty, strengths, and limitations. In addition, the multi-model comparison helps identify regions with the largest agreement on specific changes in flood risk. Results show that global warming is linked to substantial increase in flood risk over most countries in Central and Western Europe at all warming levels. In Eastern Europe, the average change in flood risk is smaller and the multi-model agreement is poorer.

A Real-Time Measurement System for Long-Life Flood Monitoring and Warning Applications

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Antonio Skarmeta Gómez

2012-03-01

Full Text Available A flood warning system incorporates telemetered rainfall and flow/water level data measured at various locations in the catchment area. Real-time accurate data collection is required for this use, and sensor networks improve the system capabilities. However, existing sensor nodes struggle to satisfy the hydrological requirements in terms of autonomy, sensor hardware compatibility, reliability and long-range communication. We describe the design and development of a real-time measurement system for flood monitoring, and its deployment in a flash-flood prone 650 km2 semiarid watershed in Southern Spain. A developed low-power and long-range communication device, so-called DatalogV1, provides automatic data gathering and reliable transmission. DatalogV1 incorporates self-monitoring for adapting measurement schedules for consumption management and to capture events of interest. Two tests are used to assess the success of the development. The results show an autonomous and robust monitoring system for long-term collection of water level data inmany sparse locations during flood events.

A New Approach to Monitoring Coastal Marshes for Persistent Flooding

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Kalcic, M. T.; Undersood, Lauren W.; Fletcher, Rose

2012-01-01

Many areas in coastal Louisiana are below sea level and protected from flooding by a system of natural and man-made levees. Flooding is common when the levees are overtopped by storm surge or rising rivers. Many levees in this region are further stressed by erosion and subsidence. The floodwaters can become constricted by levees and trapped, causing prolonged inundation. Vegetative communities in coastal regions, from fresh swamp forest to saline marsh, can be negatively affected by inundation and changes in salinity. As saltwater persists, it can have a toxic effect upon marsh vegetation causing die off and conversion to open water types, destroying valuable species habitats. The length of time the water persists and the average annual salinity are important variables in modeling habitat switching (cover type change). Marsh type habitat switching affects fish, shellfish, and wildlife inhabitants, and can affect the regional ecosystem and economy. There are numerous restoration and revitalization projects underway in the coastal region, and their effects on the entire ecosystem need to be understood. For these reasons, monitoring persistent saltwater intrusion and inundation is important. For this study, persistent flooding in Louisiana coastal marshes was mapped using MODIS (Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer) time series of a Normalized Difference Water Index (NDWI). The time series data were derived for 2000 through 2009, including flooding due to Hurricane Rita in 2005 and Hurricane Ike in 2008. Using the NDWI, duration and extent of flooding can be inferred. The Time Series Product Tool (TSPT), developed at NASA SSC, is a suite of software developed in MATLAB(R) that enables improved-quality time series images to be computed using advanced temporal processing techniques. This software has been used to compute time series for monitoring temporal changes in environmental phenomena, (e.g. NDVI times series from MODIS), and was modified and used to

Radio monitoring of the Sozh-river flood plain

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Kuznetsova, V.A.; Generalova, V.A.; Kol'nenkov, V.P.; Glaz, A.S.

2001-01-01

Periodic radiation monitoring supervision is the important parameter of the radioactivity level time control with reference to concrete landscapes, estimation and their ecological radiochemistry conditions forecast in order to accept practical measures for the risk radiation danger reduction. The early monitoring supervision was carried out in the area of radioactive anomalies in Sozh-river flood plain. The new data received in 1998 and 2000 are cited below. The radiation situation of the last landscape appropriating to conditions in central and near terrace Sozh-river flood plain, more than in 10 years, is nowadays characterized by the data of the structure of Veprin one. In coastal flood plain the maximal radioactivity is dated to meadow vegetable layer in downturn of relief or to humus horizon of actual soil on coastal shaft. In central flood plain it remains rather high with the tendency of accumulation in meliorative channels, which are nowadays strongly overgrown, in 1,6-1,9 times exceeding earlier supervision. Down the Sozh near the village Gronovo in 1988 the level of gamma activity meadow vegetable layer changed. Radioactive situation is low here nowadays: on meadow vegetable layer almost in 5 times lower than former one. It is explained by the active hydro mode snow melt flood streams at the abrupt bend of Sozh channel, resulting in meadows washing and silt material washout. The deepening of Cs-137 reaches 0,20 m and connects with the accumulation of isotope in the top part of humus horizon where it is fixed in the fixed form. Monitoring supervision on radio strontium in the section of Sozh-river flood plain near the village Gronovo shows, that in 1995 its maximal concentration is observed in humusided loamy sand under meadow vegetable layer; the main mass of isotope - up to 80 % - was concentrated in the top 30-sm layer. It is remarkable, that with depth, reducing the contents almost twice and not being marked in underlaying sands, this isotope

A global framework for future costs and benefits of river-flood protection in urban areas

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Ward, Philip J.; Jongman, Brenden; Aerts, Jeroen C. J. H.; Bates, Paul D.; Botzen, Wouter J. W.; Diaz Loaiza, Andres; Hallegatte, Stephane; Kind, Jarl M.; Kwadijk, Jaap; Scussolini, Paolo; Winsemius, Hessel C.

2017-09-01

Floods cause billions of dollars of damage each year, and flood risks are expected to increase due to socio-economic development, subsidence, and climate change. Implementing additional flood risk management measures can limit losses, protecting people and livelihoods. Whilst several models have been developed to assess global-scale river-flood risk, methods for evaluating flood risk management investments globally are lacking. Here, we present a framework for assessing costs and benefits of structural flood protection measures in urban areas around the world. We demonstrate its use under different assumptions of current and future climate change and socio-economic development. Under these assumptions, investments in dykes may be economically attractive for reducing risk in large parts of the world, but not everywhere. In some regions, economically efficient investments could reduce future flood risk below today’s levels, in spite of climate change and economic growth. We also demonstrate the sensitivity of the results to different assumptions and parameters. The framework can be used to identify regions where river-flood protection investments should be prioritized, or where other risk-reducing strategies should be emphasized.

Flood and Traffic Wireless Monitoring System for Smart Cities

KAUST Repository

Mousa, Mustafa

2016-01-01

The convergence of computation, communication and sensing has led to the emergence of Wireless Sensor Networks (WSNs), which allow distributed monitoring of physical phenomena over extended areas. In this thesis, we focus on a dual flood and traffic

Compound simulation of fluvial floods and storm surges in a global coupled river-coast flood model: Model development and its application to 2007 Cyclone Sidr in Bangladesh

Science.gov (United States)

Ikeuchi, Hiroaki; Hirabayashi, Yukiko; Yamazaki, Dai; Muis, Sanne; Ward, Philip J.; Winsemius, Hessel C.; Verlaan, Martin; Kanae, Shinjiro

2017-08-01

Water-related disasters, such as fluvial floods and cyclonic storm surges, are a major concern in the world's mega-delta regions. Furthermore, the simultaneous occurrence of extreme discharges from rivers and storm surges could exacerbate flood risk, compared to when they occur separately. Hence, it is of great importance to assess the compound risks of fluvial and coastal floods at a large scale, including mega-deltas. However, most studies on compound fluvial and coastal flooding have been limited to relatively small scales, and global-scale or large-scale studies have not yet addressed both of them. The objectives of this study are twofold: to develop a global coupled river-coast flood model; and to conduct a simulation of compound fluvial flooding and storm surges in Asian mega-delta regions. A state-of-the-art global river routing model was modified to represent the influence of dynamic sea surface levels on river discharges and water levels. We conducted the experiments by coupling a river model with a global tide and surge reanalysis data set. Results show that water levels in deltas and estuaries are greatly affected by the interaction between river discharge, ocean tides and storm surges. The effects of storm surges on fluvial flooding are further examined from a regional perspective, focusing on the case of Cyclone Sidr in the Ganges-Brahmaputra-Meghna Delta in 2007. Modeled results demonstrate that a >3 m storm surge propagated more than 200 km inland along rivers. We show that the performance of global river routing models can be improved by including sea level dynamics.

Monitoring the variability of precipitable water vapor over the Klang Valley, Malaysia during flash flood

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Suparta, W; Rahman, R; Singh, M S J

2014-01-01

Klang Valley is a focal area of Malaysian economic and business activities where the local weather condition is very important to maintain its reputation. Heavy rainfalls for more than an hour were reported up to 40 mm in September 2013 and 35 mm in October 2013. Both events are monitored as the first and second cases of flash flood, respectively. Based on these cases, we investigate the water vapor, rainfall, surface meteorological data (surface pressure, relative humidity, and temperature) and river water level. The precipitable water vapor (PWV) derived from Global Positioning System (GPS) is used to indicate the impact of flash flood on the rainfall. We found that PWV was dropped 4 mm in 2 hours before rainfall reached to 40 mm and dropped 3 mm in 3 hours before 35 mm of rainfall in respective cases. Variation of PWV was higher in September case compared to October case of about 2 mm. We suggest the rainfall phenomena can disturb the GPS propagation and therefore, the impact of PWV before, during and after the flash flood event at three selected GPS stations in Klang Valley is investigated for possible mitigation in the future

Influence of ENSO on coastal flood hazard and exposure at the global-scale

Science.gov (United States)

Muis, S.; Haigh, I. D.; Guimarães Nobre, G.; Aerts, J.; Ward, P.

2017-12-01

The El Niño-Southern Oscillation (ENSO) is the dominant signal of interannual climate variability. The unusually warm (El Niño) and cold (La Niña) oceanic and atmospheric conditions in the tropical Pacific drives interannual variability in both mean and extreme sea levels, which in turn may influence the probabilities and impacts of coastal flooding. We assess the influence of ENSO on coastal flood hazard and exposure using daily timeseries from the Global Time and Surge Reanalysis (GTSR) dataset (Muis et al., 2016). As the GTSR timeseries do not include steric effects (i.e. density differences), we improve the GTSR timeseries by adding steric sea levels. Evaluation against observed sea levels shows that the including steric sea levels leads to a much better representation of the seasonal and interannual variability. We show that sea level anomalies occur during ENSO years with higher sea levels during La Niña in the South-Atlantic, Indian Ocean and the West Pacific, whereas sea levels are lower in the east Pacific. The pattern is generally inversed for El Niño. We also find an effect of ENSO in the number of people exposed to coastal flooding. Although the effect is minor at the global-scale, it may be important for flood risk management to consider at the national or sub national levels. Previous studies at the global-scale have used tide gauge observation to assess the influence of ENSO on extreme sea levels. The advantage of our approach over observations is that GTSR provides a consistent dataset with a full global coverage for the period 1979-2014. This allows us to assess ENSO's influence on sea level extremes anywhere in the world. Furthermore, it enables us to also calculate the impacts of extreme sea levels in terms of coastal flooding and exposed population. ReferencesMuis et al (2016) A global reanalysis of storm surges and extreme sea levels. Nature Communications.7:11969. doi:10.1038/ncomms11969.

Quantifying invertebrate resistance to floods: a global-scale meta-analysis.

Science.gov (United States)

McMullen, Laura E; Lytle, David A

2012-12-01

Floods are a key component of the ecology and management of riverine ecosystems around the globe, but it is not clear whether floods have predictable effects on organisms that can allow us to generalize across regions and continents. To address this, we conducted a global-scale meta-analysis to investigate effects of natural and managed floods on invertebrate resistance, the ability of invertebrates to survive flood events. We considered 994 studies for inclusion in the analysis, and after evaluation based on a priori criteria, narrowed our analysis to 41 studies spanning six of the seven continents. We used the natural-log-ratio of invertebrate abundance before and within 10 days after flood events because this measure of effect size can be directly converted to estimates of percent survival. We conducted categorical and continuous analyses that examined the contribution of environmental and study design variables to effect size heterogeneity, and examined differences in effect size among taxonomic groups. We found that invertebrate abundance was lowered by at least one-half after flood events. While natural vs. managed floods were similar in their effect, effect size differed among habitat and substrate types, with pools, sand, and boulders experiencing the strongest effect. Although sample sizes were not sufficient to examine all taxonomic groups, floods had a significant, negative effect on densities of Coleoptera, Eumalacostraca, Annelida, Ephemeroptera, Diptera, Plecoptera, and Trichoptera. Results from this study provide guidance for river flow regime prescriptions that will be applicable across continents and climate types, as well as baseline expectations for future empirical studies of freshwater disturbance.

Hyper-resolution monitoring of urban flooding with social media and crowdsourcing data

Science.gov (United States)

Wang, Ruo-Qian; Mao, Huina; Wang, Yuan; Rae, Chris; Shaw, Wesley

2018-02-01

Hyper-resolution datasets for urban flooding are rare. This problem prevents detailed flooding risk analysis, urban flooding control, and the validation of hyper-resolution numerical models. We employed social media and crowdsourcing data to address this issue. Natural Language Processing and Computer Vision techniques are applied to the data collected from Twitter and MyCoast (a crowdsourcing app). We found these big data based flood monitoring approaches can complement the existing means of flood data collection. The extracted information is validated against precipitation data and road closure reports to examine the data quality. The two data collection approaches are compared and the two data mining methods are discussed. A series of suggestions is given to improve the data collection strategy.

Global Rapid Flood Mapping System with Spaceborne SAR Data

Science.gov (United States)

Yun, S. H.; Owen, S. E.; Hua, H.; Agram, P. S.; Fattahi, H.; Liang, C.; Manipon, G.; Fielding, E. J.; Rosen, P. A.; Webb, F.; Simons, M.

2017-12-01

As part of the Advanced Rapid Imaging and Analysis (ARIA) project for Natural Hazards, at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory and California Institute of Technology, we have developed an automated system that produces derived products for flood extent map generation using spaceborne SAR data. The system takes user's input of area of interest polygons and time window for SAR data search (pre- and post-event). Then the system automatically searches and downloads SAR data, processes them to produce coregistered SAR image pairs, and generates log amplitude ratio images from each pair. Currently the system is automated to support SAR data from the European Space Agency's Sentinel-1A/B satellites. We have used the system to produce flood extent maps from Sentinel-1 SAR data for the May 2017 Sri Lanka floods, which killed more than 200 people and displaced about 600,000 people. Our flood extent maps were delivered to the Red Cross to support response efforts. Earlier we also responded to the historic August 2016 Louisiana floods in the United States, which claimed 13 people's lives and caused over $10 billion property damage. For this event, we made synchronized observations from space, air, and ground in close collaboration with USGS and NOAA. The USGS field crews acquired ground observation data, and NOAA acquired high-resolution airborne optical imagery within the time window of +/-2 hours of the SAR data acquisition by JAXA's ALOS-2 satellite. The USGS coordinates of flood water boundaries were used to calibrate our flood extent map derived from the ALOS-2 SAR data, and the map was delivered to FEMA for estimating the number of households affected. Based on the lessons learned from this response effort, we customized the ARIA system automation for rapid flood mapping and developed a mobile friendly web app that can easily be used in the field for data collection. Rapid automatic generation of SAR-based global flood maps calibrated with independent observations from

The dichotomous response of flood and storm extremes to rising global temperatures

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Sharma, A.; Wasko, C.

2017-12-01

Rising temperature have resulted in increases in short-duration rainfall extremes across the world. Additionally it has been shown (doi:10.1038/ngeo2456) that storms will intensify, causing derived flood peaks to rise even more. This leads us to speculate that flood peaks will increase as a result, complying with the storyline presented in past IPCC reports. This talk, however, shows that changes in flood extremes are much more complex. Using global data on extreme flow events, the study conclusively shows that while the very extreme floods may be rising as a result of storm intensification, the more frequent flood events are decreasing in magnitude. The study argues that changes in the magnitude of floods are a function of changes in storm patterns and as well as pre-storm or antecedent conditions. It goes on to show that while changes in storms dominate for the most extreme events and over smaller, more urbanised catchments, changes in pre-storm conditions are the driving factor in modulating flood peaks in large rural catchments. The study concludes by providing recommendations on how future flood design should proceed, arguing that current practices (or using a design storm to estimate floods) are flawed and need changing.

An Observation Task Chain Representation Model for Disaster Process-Oriented Remote Sensing Satellite Sensor Planning: A Flood Water Monitoring Application

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Chao Yang

2018-03-01

Full Text Available An accurate and comprehensive representation of an observation task is a prerequisite in disaster monitoring to achieve reliable sensor observation planning. However, the extant disaster event or task information models do not fully satisfy the observation requirements for the accurate and efficient planning of remote-sensing satellite sensors. By considering the modeling requirements for a disaster observation task, we propose an observation task chain (OTChain representation model that includes four basic OTChain segments and eight-tuple observation task metadata description structures. A prototype system, namely OTChainManager, is implemented to provide functions for modeling, managing, querying, and visualizing observation tasks. In the case of flood water monitoring, we use a flood remote-sensing satellite sensor observation task for the experiment. The results show that the proposed OTChain representation model can be used in modeling process-owned flood disaster observation tasks. By querying and visualizing the flood observation task instances in the Jinsha River Basin, the proposed model can effectively express observation task processes, represent personalized observation constraints, and plan global remote-sensing satellite sensor observations. Compared with typical observation task information models or engines, the proposed OTChain representation model satisfies the information demands of the OTChain and its processes as well as impels the development of a long time-series sensor observation scheme.

Fibre Bragg grating for flood embankment monitoring

Science.gov (United States)

Markowski, Konrad; Nevar, Stanislau; Dworzanski, Adam; Hackiewicz, Krzysztof; Jedrzejewski, Kazimierz

2014-11-01

In this article we present the preliminary studies for the flood embankment monitoring system based on the fibre Bragg gratings. The idea of the system is presented. The Bragg resonance shift is transformed to the change of the power detected by the standard InGaAs photodiode. The discrimination of the received power was executed by another fibre Bragg grating with different parameters. The project of the fully functional system is presented as well.

Synchronous drought and flooding in southern Chinese Loess Plateau in phase with the variation of global temperature

Science.gov (United States)

Yu, X.; Kang, Z.

2017-12-01

Drought and flooding, usually occurring in the catchment scale, are the main natural threats to human livelihood due to the extreme variation of precipitation in spatiotemporal scales. Within the context of global warming, the risk of flood and drought tends to increase in different regions. Understanding the mechanism of the regional occurrence of flood and drought is of enormous importance for the predicting studies and taking corresponding measures. However, the instrumental records are too short to conduct a prediction. Here, we present a historical-archive-based high-resolution dataset of drought and flooding back to AD 1646 in the southern Chinese Loess Plateau. This sequence, integrated with the modern meteorological observation data, shows that the frequency of drought and flooding in the study region is synchronous on a decadal scale, and they are in phase with the increase in both global and regional temperature. During the warm period, the ENSO activity was found to be increase, resulting in the anomaly distribution of precipitation in different seasons in southern Chinese Loess Plateau, which is the reason for the temperature dependence of flooding and drought in this region. If global temperature continues to rise in the future, the risk of both drought and flooding in the study area would also increase.

Monitoring Inland Storm Surge and Flooding from Hurricane Rita

Science.gov (United States)

McGee, Benton D.; Tollett, Roland W.; Mason, Jr., Robert R.

2006-01-01

Pressure transducers (sensors) and high-water marks were used to document the inland water levels related to storm surge generated by Hurricane Rita in southwestern Louisiana and southeastern Texas. On September 22-23, 2005, an experimental monitoring network of sensors was deployed at 33 sites over an area of about 4,000 square miles to record the timing, extent, and magnitude of inland hurricane storm surge and coastal flooding. Sensors were programmed to record date and time, temperature, and barometric or water pressure. Water pressure was corrected for changes in barometric pressure and salinity. Elevation surveys using global-positioning systems and differential levels were used to relate all storm-surge water-level data, reference marks, benchmarks, sensor measuring points, and high-water marks to the North American Vertical Datum of 1988 (NAVD 88). The resulting data indicated that storm-surge water levels over 14 feet above NAVD 88 occurred at three locations, and rates of water-level rise greater than 5 feet per hour occurred at three locations near the Louisiana coast.

Hyperresolution global land surface modeling: Meeting a grand challenge for monitoring Earth's terrestrial water

Science.gov (United States)

Wood, Eric F.; Roundy, Joshua K.; Troy, Tara J.; van Beek, L. P. H.; Bierkens, Marc F. P.; Blyth, Eleanor; de Roo, Ad; DöLl, Petra; Ek, Mike; Famiglietti, James; Gochis, David; van de Giesen, Nick; Houser, Paul; Jaffé, Peter R.; Kollet, Stefan; Lehner, Bernhard; Lettenmaier, Dennis P.; Peters-Lidard, Christa; Sivapalan, Murugesu; Sheffield, Justin; Wade, Andrew; Whitehead, Paul

2011-05-01

Monitoring Earth's terrestrial water conditions is critically important to many hydrological applications such as global food production; assessing water resources sustainability; and flood, drought, and climate change prediction. These needs have motivated the development of pilot monitoring and prediction systems for terrestrial hydrologic and vegetative states, but to date only at the rather coarse spatial resolutions (˜10-100 km) over continental to global domains. Adequately addressing critical water cycle science questions and applications requires systems that are implemented globally at much higher resolutions, on the order of 1 km, resolutions referred to as hyperresolution in the context of global land surface models. This opinion paper sets forth the needs and benefits for a system that would monitor and predict the Earth's terrestrial water, energy, and biogeochemical cycles. We discuss six major challenges in developing a system: improved representation of surface-subsurface interactions due to fine-scale topography and vegetation; improved representation of land-atmospheric interactions and resulting spatial information on soil moisture and evapotranspiration; inclusion of water quality as part of the biogeochemical cycle; representation of human impacts from water management; utilizing massively parallel computer systems and recent computational advances in solving hyperresolution models that will have up to 109 unknowns; and developing the required in situ and remote sensing global data sets. We deem the development of a global hyperresolution model for monitoring the terrestrial water, energy, and biogeochemical cycles a "grand challenge" to the community, and we call upon the international hydrologic community and the hydrological science support infrastructure to endorse the effort.

Hyperresolution Global Land Surface Modeling: Meeting a Grand Challenge for Monitoring Earth's Terrestrial Water

Science.gov (United States)

Wood, Eric F.; Roundy, Joshua K.; Troy, Tara J.; van Beek, L. P. H.; Bierkens, Marc F. P.; 4 Blyth, Eleanor; de Roo, Ad; Doell. Petra; Ek, Mike; Famiglietti, James;

Monitoring the effects of floods on submerged macrophytes in a large river.

Science.gov (United States)

Ibáñez, Carles; Caiola, Nuno; Rovira, Albert; Real, Montserrat

2012-12-01

The lower Ebro River (Catalonia, Spain) has recently undergone a regime shift from a phytoplankton to a macrophyte-dominated system. Macrophytes started to spread at the end of the 1990s and since 2002 artificial floods (flushing flows) of short duration (1-2 days) are released from the Riba-roja dam once or twice a year in order to reduce macrophyte density. The aim of this study was to analyse the spatiotemporal trends of the submerged macrophytes in two stretches of the lower Ebro River using high-resolution hydroacoustic methods, in order to elucidate the effects of artificial floods and natural floods on its distribution and abundance. Results showed that the mean cover in the two studied stretches (Móra and Ginestar) was not reduced after a flushing flow (from 36.59% to 55.85% in Móra, and from 21.18% to 21.05% in Ginestar), but it was greatly reduced after the natural flood (down to 9.79% in Móra and 2.04% in Ginestar); surprisingly the cover increased in Móra after the artificial flood. In order to increase the efficiency of floods in controlling macrophyte spreading, the magnitude and frequency of them should largely increase, as well as the suspended sediment load, approaching as much as possible to the original flood pattern before dam construction. Hydroacoustic methods combined with geostatistics and interpolation in GIS can accurately monitor spatiotemporal trends of submerged macrophytes in large rivers. This is the first article to apply this monitoring system to submerged macrophytes in rivers. Copyright © 2012 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Building a High-Precision 2D Hydrodynamic Flood Model Using UAV Photogrammetry and Sensor Network Monitoring

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Jakub Langhammer

2017-11-01

Full Text Available This paper explores the potential of the joint application of unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV-based photogrammetry and an automated sensor network for building a hydrodynamic flood model of a montane stream. UAV-based imagery was used for three-dimensional (3D photogrammetric reconstruction of the stream channel, achieving a resolution of 1.5 cm/pixel. Automated ultrasonic water level gauges, operating with a 10 min interval, were used as a source of hydrological data for the model calibration, and the MIKE 21 hydrodynamic model was used for building the flood model. Three different horizontal schematizations of the channel—an orthogonal grid, curvilinear grid, and flexible mesh—were used to evaluate the effect of spatial discretization on the results. The research was performed on Javori Brook, a montane stream in the Sumava (Bohemian Forest Mountains, Czech Republic, Central Europe, featuring a fast runoff response to precipitation events and that is located in a core zone of frequent flooding. The studied catchments have been, since 2007, equipped with automated water level gauges and, since 2013, under repeated UAV monitoring. The study revealed the high potential of these data sources for applications in hydrodynamic modeling. In addition to the ultra-high levels of spatial and temporal resolution, the major contribution is in the method’s high operability, enabling the building of highly detailed flood models even in remote areas lacking conventional monitoring. The testing of the data sources and model setup indicated the limitations of the UAV reconstruction of the stream bathymetry, which was completed by the geodetic-grade global navigation satellite system (GNSS measurements. The testing of the different model domain schematizations did not indicate the substantial differences that are typical for conventional low-resolution data, proving the high reliability of the tested modeling workflow.

The Challenges of Developing a Framework for Global Water Cycle Monitoring and Prediction (Alfred Wegener Medal Lecture)

Science.gov (United States)

Wood, Eric F.

2014-05-01

The Global Earth Observation System of Systems (GEOSS) Water Strategy ("From Observations to Decisions") recognizes that "water is essential for ensuring food and energy security, for facilitating poverty reduction and health security, and for the maintenance of ecosystems and biodiversity", and that water cycle data and observations are critical for improved water management and water security - especially in less developed regions. The GEOSS Water Strategy has articulated a number of goals for improved water management, including flood and drought preparedness, that include: (i) facilitating the use of Earth Observations for water cycle observations; (ii) facilitating the acquisition, processing, and distribution of data products needed for effective management; (iii) providing expertise, information systems, and datasets to the global, regional, and national water communities. There are several challenges that must be met to advance our capability to provide near real-time water cycle monitoring, early warning of hydrological hazards (floods and droughts) and risk assessment under climate change, regionally and globally. Current approaches to monitoring and predicting hydrological hazards are limited in many parts of the world, and especially in developing countries where national capacity is limited and monitoring networks are inadequate. This presentation describes the developments at Princeton University towards a seamless monitoring and prediction framework at all time scales that allows for consistent assessment of water variability from historic to current conditions, and from seasonal and decadal predictions to climate change projections. At the center of the framework is an experimental, global water cycle monitoring and seasonal forecast system that has evolved out of regional and continental systems for the US and Africa. The system is based on land surface hydrological modeling that is driven by satellite remote sensing precipitation to predict

Global Near Real-Time MODIS and Landsat Flood Mapping and Product Delivery

Science.gov (United States)

Policelli, F. S.; Slayback, D. A.; Tokay, M. M.; Brakenridge, G. R.

2014-12-01

Flooding is the most destructive, frequent, and costly natural disaster faced by modern society, and is increasing in frequency and damage (deaths, displacements, and financial costs) as populations increase and climate change generates more extreme weather events. When major flooding events occur, the disaster management community needs frequently updated and easily accessible information to better understand the extent of flooding and coordinate response efforts. With funding from NASA's Applied Sciences program, we developed and are now operating a near real-time global flood mapping system to help provide flood extent information within 24-48 hours of events. The principal element of the system applies a water detection algorithm to MODIS imagery, which is processed by the LANCE (Land Atmosphere Near real-time Capability for EOS) system at NASA Goddard within a few hours of satellite overpass. Using imagery from both the Terra (10:30 AM local time overpass) and Aqua (1:30 PM) platforms allows the system to deliver an initial daily assessment of flood extent by late afternoon, and more robust assessments after accumulating cloud-free imagery over several days. Cloud cover is the primary limitation in detecting surface water from MODIS imagery. Other issues include the relatively coarse scale of the MODIS imagery (250 meters) for some events, the difficulty of detecting flood waters in areas with continuous canopy cover, confusion of shadow (cloud or terrain) with water, and accurately identifying detected water as flood as opposed to normal water extent. We are working on improvements to address these limitations. We have also begun delivery of near real time water maps at 30 m resolution from Landsat imagery. Although Landsat is not available daily globally, but only every 8 days if imagery from both operating platforms (Landsat 7 and 8) is accessed, it can provide useful higher resolution data on water extent when a clear acquisition coincides with an active

Dedicated IT infrastructure for Smart Levee Monitoring and Flood Decision Support

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Balis Bartosz

2016-01-01

Full Text Available Smart levees are being increasingly investigated as a flood protection technology. However, in large-scale emergency situations, a flood decision support system may need to collect and process data from hundreds of kilometers of smart levees; such a scenario requires a resilient and scalable IT infrastructure, capable of providing urgent computing services in order to perform frequent data analyses required in decision making, and deliver their results in a timely fashion. We present the ISMOP IT infrastructure for smart levee monitoring, designed to support decision making in large-scale emergency situations. Most existing approaches to urgent computing services in decision support systems dealing with natural disasters focus on delivering quality of service for individual, isolated subsystems of the IT infrastructure (such as computing, storage, or data transmission. We propose a holistic approach to dynamic system management during both urgent (emergency and normal (non-emergency operation. In this approach, we introduce a Holistic Computing Controller which calculates and deploys a globally optimal configuration for the entire IT infrastructure, based on cost-of-operation and quality-of-service (QoS requirements of individual IT subsystems, expressed in the form of Service Level Agreements (SLAs. Our approach leads to improved configuration settings and, consequently, better fulfilment of the system’s cost and QoS requirements than would have otherwise been possible had the configuration of all subsystems been managed in isolation.

Development and Evaluation of an Integrated Hydrological Modeling Framework for Monitoring and Understanding Floods and Droughts

Science.gov (United States)

Yang, Z. L.; Wu, W. Y.; Lin, P.; Maidment, D. R.

2017-12-01

Extreme water events such as catastrophic floods and severe droughts have increased in recent decades. Mitigating the risk to lives, food security, infrastructure, energy supplies, as well as numerous other industries posed by these extreme events requires informed decision-making and planning based on sound science. We are developing a global water modeling capability by building models that will provide total operational water predictions (evapotranspiration, soil moisture, groundwater, channel flow, inundation, snow) at unprecedented spatial resolutions and updated frequencies. Toward this goal, this talk presents an integrated global hydrological modeling framework that takes advantage of gridded meteorological forcing, land surface modeling, channeled flow modeling, ground observations, and satellite remote sensing. Launched in August 2016, the National Water Model successfully incorporates weather forecasts to predict river flows for more than 2.7 million rivers across the continental United States, which transfers a "synoptic weather map" to a "synoptic river flow map" operationally. In this study, we apply a similar framework to a high-resolution global river network database, which is developed from a hierarchical Dominant River Tracing (DRT) algorithm, and runoff output from the Global Land Data Assimilation System (GLDAS) to a vector-based river routing model (The Routing Application for Parallel Computation of Discharge, RAPID) to produce river flows from 2001 to 2016 using Message Passing Interface (MPI) on Texas Advanced Computer Center's Stampede system. In this simulation, global river discharges for more than 177,000 rivers are computed every 30 minutes. The modeling framework's performance is evaluated with various observations including river flows at more than 400 gauge stations globally. Overall, the model exhibits a reasonably good performance in simulating the averaged patterns of terrestrial water storage, evapotranspiration and runoff. The

Systems and method for lagrangian monitoring of flooding conditions

KAUST Repository

Claudel, Christian G.

2015-12-17

A traffic monitoring system and method for mapping traffic speed and density while preserving privacy. The system can include fixed stations that make up a network and mobile probes that are associated with vehicles. The system and method do not gather, store, or transmit any unique or identifying information, and thereby preserves the privacy of members of traffic. The system and method provide real-time traffic density and speed mapping. The system and method can further be integrated with a complementary flood monitoring system and method.

From global circulation to flood loss: Coupling models across the scales

Science.gov (United States)

Felder, Guido; Gomez-Navarro, Juan Jose; Bozhinova, Denica; Zischg, Andreas; Raible, Christoph C.; Ole, Roessler; Martius, Olivia; Weingartner, Rolf

2017-04-01

The prediction and the prevention of flood losses requires an extensive understanding of underlying meteorological, hydrological, hydraulic and damage processes. Coupled models help to improve the understanding of such underlying processes and therefore contribute the understanding of flood risk. Using such a modelling approach to determine potentially flood-affected areas and damages requires a complex coupling between several models operating at different spatial and temporal scales. Although the isolated parts of the single modelling components are well established and commonly used in the literature, a full coupling including a mesoscale meteorological model driven by a global circulation one, a hydrologic model, a hydrodynamic model and a flood impact and loss model has not been reported so far. In the present study, we tackle the application of such a coupled model chain in terms of computational resources, scale effects, and model performance. From a technical point of view, results show the general applicability of such a coupled model, as well as good model performance. From a practical point of view, such an approach enables the prediction of flood-induced damages, although some future challenges have been identified.

Best Practice for Rainfall Measurement, Torrential Flood Monitoring and Real Time Alerting System in Serbia

Science.gov (United States)

Stefanovic, Milutin; Milojevic, Mileta; Zlatanovic, Nikola

2014-05-01

Serbia occupies 88.000 km2 and its confined zone menaced with torrent flood occupies 50.000km2. Floods on large rivers and torrents are the most frequent natural disasters in Serbia. This is the result of a geographic position and relief of Serbia. Therefore, defense from these natural disasters has been institutionalized since the 19th century. Through its specialized bodies and public companies, the State organized defense from floods on large rivers and protection of international and other main roads. The Topčiderska River is one of a number of rivers in Serbia that is a threat to both urban and rural environments. In this text, general characteristics of this river will be illustrated, as well as the historical natural hazards that have occurred in the part of Belgrade near Topčiderska River. Belgrade is the capital of Serbia, its political, administrative and financial center, which means that there are significant financial capacities and human resources for investments in all sectors, and specially in the water resources sector. Along the Topčiderska catchment there are many industrial, traffic and residential structures that are in danger of floods and flood protection is more difficult with rapid high flows. The goal is to use monitoring on the Topčiderska River basin to set up a modern system for monitoring in real time and forecast of torrential floods. This paper represents a system of remote detection and monitoring of torrential floods and rain measurements in real time on Topciderka river and ready for a quick response.

A global classification of coastal flood hazard climates associated with large-scale oceanographic forcing.

Science.gov (United States)

Rueda, Ana; Vitousek, Sean; Camus, Paula; Tomás, Antonio; Espejo, Antonio; Losada, Inigo J; Barnard, Patrick L; Erikson, Li H; Ruggiero, Peter; Reguero, Borja G; Mendez, Fernando J

2017-07-11

Coastal communities throughout the world are exposed to numerous and increasing threats, such as coastal flooding and erosion, saltwater intrusion and wetland degradation. Here, we present the first global-scale analysis of the main drivers of coastal flooding due to large-scale oceanographic factors. Given the large dimensionality of the problem (e.g. spatiotemporal variability in flood magnitude and the relative influence of waves, tides and surge levels), we have performed a computer-based classification to identify geographical areas with homogeneous climates. Results show that 75% of coastal regions around the globe have the potential for very large flooding events with low probabilities (unbounded tails), 82% are tide-dominated, and almost 49% are highly susceptible to increases in flooding frequency due to sea-level rise.

A UAV based system for real time flash flood monitoring in desert environments using Lagrangian microsensors

KAUST Repository

Abdelkader, Mohamed

2013-05-01

Floods are the most common natural disasters, causing thousands of casualties every year in the world. In particular, flash flood events are particularly deadly because of the short timescales on which they occur. Most casualties could be avoided with advance warning, for which real time monitoring is critical. While satellite-based high resolution weather forecasts can help predict floods to a certain extent, they are not reliable enough, as flood models depend on a large number of parameters that cannot be estimated beforehand. In this article, we present a novel flood sensing architecture to monitor large scale desert hydrological basins surrounding metropolitan areas, based on unmanned air vehicles. The system relies on Lagrangian (mobile) microsensors, that are released by a swarm of UAVs. A preliminary testbed implementing this technology is briefly described, and future research directions and problems are discussed. © 2013 IEEE.

Downscaling Global Weather Forecast Outputs Using ANN for Flood Prediction

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Nam Do Hoai

2011-01-01

Full Text Available Downscaling global weather prediction model outputs to individual locations or local scales is a common practice for operational weather forecast in order to correct the model outputs at subgrid scales. This paper presents an empirical-statistical downscaling method for precipitation prediction which uses a feed-forward multilayer perceptron (MLP neural network. The MLP architecture was optimized by considering physical bases that determine the circulation of atmospheric variables. Downscaled precipitation was then used as inputs to the super tank model (runoff model for flood prediction. The case study was conducted for the Thu Bon River Basin, located in Central Vietnam. Study results showed that the precipitation predicted by MLP outperformed that directly obtained from model outputs or downscaled using multiple linear regression. Consequently, flood forecast based on the downscaled precipitation was very encouraging. It has demonstrated as a robust technology, simple to implement, reliable, and universal application for flood prediction through the combination of downscaling model and super tank model.

An Assessment of Capacity, Gaps and Opportunities toward Building a Global Early Warning System for Flood Disasters

Science.gov (United States)

Hong, Y.; Adler, R.; Huffman, G.

2007-12-01

Many governmental emergency management agencies or non-governmental organizations need real-time information on emerging disasters for preparedness and response. However, progress in warnings for hydrologic disasters has been constrained by the difficulty of measuring spatiotemporal variability of rainfall fluxes continuously over space and time, due largely to insufficient ground monitoring networks, long delay in data transmission and absence of data sharing protocols among many geopolitically trans-boundary basins. In addition, in-situ gauging stations are often washed away by the very floods they are designed to monitor, making reconstruction of gauges a common post-flood activity around the world. In reality, remote sensing precipitation estimates may be the only source of rainfall information available over much of the globe, particularly for vulnerable countries in the tropics where abundant extreme rain storms and severe flooding events repeat every year. Building on progress in remote sensing technology, researchers have improved the accuracy, coverage, and resolution of rainfall estimates by combining imagery from infrared, passive microwave, and weather radar sensors. Today, remote sensing imagery acquired and processed in real time can provide near-real-time rainfall fluxes at relatively fine spatiotemporal scales (kilometers to tens of kilometers and 30-minute to 3-hour). These new suites of rainfall products have the potential to support daily decision-making in analysis of hydrologic hazards. This talk will address several key issues, including remote sensing rainfall retrieval and data assimilation, for hydrologists to develop alternative satellite-based flood warning systems that may supplement in-situ infrastructure when conventional data sources are denied due to natural or administrative causes. This talk will also assess a module-structure global flood prediction system that has been running at real-time by integrating remote sensing forcing

Global Scale Remote Sensing Monitoring of Endorheic Lake Systems

Science.gov (United States)

Scuderi, L. A.

2010-12-01

Semi-arid regions of the world contain thousands of endorheic lakes in large shallow basins. Due to their generally remote locations few are continuously monitored. Documentation of recent variability is essential to assessing how endorheic lakes respond to short-term meteorological conditions and longer-term decadal-scale climatic variability and is critical in determining future disturbance of hydrological regimes with respect to predicted warming and drying in the mid-latitudes. Short- and long-term departures from climatic averages, rapid environmental shifts and increased population pressures may result in significant fluctuations in the hydrologic budgets of these lakes and adversely impact endorheic lake/basin ecosystems. Information on flooding variability is also critical in estimating changes in P/E balances and on the production of exposed and easily deflated surfaces that may impact dust loading locally and regionally. In order to provide information on how these lakes respond we need to understand how entire systems respond hydrologically to different climatic inputs. This requires monitoring and analysis of regional to continental-scale systems. To date, this level of monitoring has not been achieved in an operational system. In order to assess the possibility of creating a global-scale lake inundation database we analyzed two contrasting lake systems in western North America (Mexico and New Mexico, USA) and China (Inner Mongolia). We asked two major questions: 1) is it possible to quickly and accurately quantify current lake inundation events in near real time using remote sensing? and, 2) is it possible to differentiate variable meteorological sources and resultant lake inundation responses using this type of database? With respect to these results we outline an automated lake monitoring approach using MODIS data and real-time processing systems that may provide future global monitoring capabilities.

Towards a Flood Severity Index

Science.gov (United States)

Kettner, A.; Chong, A.; Prades, L.; Brakenridge, G. R.; Muir, S.; Amparore, A.; Slayback, D. A.; Poungprom, R.

2017-12-01

Flooding is the most common natural hazard worldwide, affecting 21 million people every year. In the immediate moments following a flood event, humanitarian actors like the World Food Program need to make rapid decisions ( 72 hrs) on how to prioritize affected areas impacted by such an event. For other natural disasters like hurricanes/cyclones and earthquakes, there are industry-recognized standards on how the impacted areas are to be classified. Shake maps, quantifying peak ground motion, from for example the US Geological Survey are widely used for assessing earthquakes. Similarly, cyclones are tracked by Joint Typhoon Warning Center (JTWC) and Global Disaster Alert and Coordination System (GDACS) who release storm nodes and tracks (forecasted and actual), with wind buffers and classify the event according to the Saffir-Simpson Hurricane Wind Scale. For floods, the community is usually able to acquire unclassified data of the flood extent as identified from satellite imagery. Most often no water discharge hydrograph is available to classify the event into recurrence intervals simply because there is no gauging station, or the gauging station was unable to record the maximum discharge due to overtopping or flood damage. So, the question remains: How do we methodically turn a flooded area into classified areas of different gradations of impact? Here, we present a first approach towards developing a global applicable flood severity index. The flood severity index is set up such that it considers relatively easily obtainable physical parameters in a short period of time like: flood frequency (relating the current flood to historical events) and magnitude, as well as land cover, slope, and where available pre-event simulated flood depth. The scale includes categories ranging from very minor flooding to catastrophic flooding. We test and evaluate the postulated classification scheme against a set of past flood events. Once a severity category is determined, socio

Monitoring and Mapping the Hurricane Harvey Flooding in Houston, Texas.

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Balaji Bhaskar, M. S.

2017-12-01

Monitoring and Mapping the Hurricane Harvey Flooding in Houston, Texas.Urban flooding is a hazard that causes major destruction and loss of life. High intense precipitation events have increased significantly in Houston, Texas in recent years resulting in frequent river and bayou flooding. Many of the historical storm events such as Allison, Rita and Ike have caused several billion dollars in losses for the Houston-Galveston Region. A category 4 Hurricane Harvey made landfall on South Texas resulting in heavy precipitation from Aug 25 to 29 of 2017. About 1 trillion gallons of water fell across Harris County over a 4-day period. This amount of water covers Harris County's 1,800 square miles with an average of 33 inches of water. The long rain event resulted in an average 40inch rainfall across the area in several rain gauges and the maximum rainfall of 49.6 inches was recorded near Clear Creek. The objectives of our study are to 1) Process the Geographic Information System (GIS) and satellite data from the pre and post Hurricane Harvey event in Houston, Texas and 2) Analyze the satellite imagery to map the nature and pattern of the flooding in Houston-Galveston Region. The GIS data of the study area was downloaded and processed from the various publicly available resources such as Houston Galveston Area Council (HGAC), Texas Commission of Environmental Quality (TCEQ) and Texas Natural Resource Information Systems (TNRIS). The satellite data collected soon after the Harvey flooding event were downloaded and processed using the ERDAS image processing software. The flood plain areas surrounding the Brazos River, Buffalo Bayou and the Addicks Barker reservoirs showed severe inundation. The different watershed areas affected by the catastrophic flooding in the wake of Hurricane Harvey were mapped and compared with the pre flooding event.

Insightful monitoring of natural flood risk management features using a low-cost and participatory approach

Science.gov (United States)

Starkey, Eleanor; Barnes, Mhari; Quinn, Paul; Large, Andy

2016-04-01

Pressures associated with flooding and climate change have significantly increased over recent years. Natural Flood Risk Management (NFRM) is now seen as being a more appropriate and favourable approach in some locations. At the same time, catchment managers are also encouraged to adopt a more integrated, evidence-based and bottom-up approach. This includes engaging with local communities. Although NFRM features are being more readily installed, there is still limited evidence associated with their ability to reduce flood risk and offer multiple benefits. In particular, local communities and land owners are still uncertain about what the features entail and how they will perform, which is a huge barrier affecting widespread uptake. Traditional hydrometric monitoring techniques are well established but they still struggle to successfully monitor and capture NFRM performance spatially and temporally in a visual and more meaningful way for those directly affected on the ground. Two UK-based case studies are presented here where unique NFRM features have been carefully designed and installed in rural headwater catchments. This includes a 1km2 sub-catchment of the Haltwhistle Burn (northern England) and a 2km2 sub-catchment of Eddleston Water (southern Scotland). Both of these pilot sites are subject to prolonged flooding in winter and flash flooding in summer. This exacerbates sediment, debris and water quality issues downstream. Examples of NFRM features include ponds, woody debris and a log feature inspired by the children's game 'Kerplunk'. They have been tested and monitored over the 2015-2016 winter storms using low-cost techniques by both researchers and members of the community ('citizen scientists'). Results show that monitoring techniques such as regular consumer specification time-lapse cameras, photographs, videos and 'kite-cams' are suitable for long-term and low-cost monitoring of a variety of NFRM features. These techniques have been compared against

Near Real-Time Flood Monitoring and Impact Assessment Systems. Chapter 6; [Case Study: 2011 Flooding in Southeast Asia

Science.gov (United States)

Ahamed, Aakash; Bolten, John; Doyle, Colin; Fayne, Jessica

2016-01-01

Floods are the costliest natural disaster, causing approximately 6.8 million deaths in the twentieth century alone. Worldwide economic flood damage estimates in 2012 exceed $19 Billion USD. Extended duration floods also pose longer term threats to food security, water, sanitation, hygiene, and community livelihoods, particularly in developing countries. Projections by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) suggest that precipitation extremes, rainfall intensity, storm intensity, and variability are increasing due to climate change. Increasing hydrologic uncertainty will likely lead to unprecedented extreme flood events. As such, there is a vital need to enhance and further develop traditional techniques used to rapidly assess flooding and extend analytical methods to estimate impacted population and infrastructure. Measuring flood extent in situ is generally impractical, time consuming, and can be inaccurate. Remotely sensed imagery acquired from space-borne and airborne sensors provides a viable platform for consistent and rapid wall-to-wall monitoring of large flood events through time. Terabytes of freely available satellite imagery are made available online each day by NASA, ESA, and other international space research institutions. Advances in cloud computing and data storage technologies allow researchers to leverage these satellite data and apply analytical methods at scale. Repeat-survey earth observations help provide insight about how natural phenomena change through time, including the progression and recession of floodwaters. In recent years, cloud-penetrating radar remote sensing techniques (e.g., Synthetic Aperture Radar) and high temporal resolution imagery platforms (e.g., MODIS and its 1-day return period), along with high performance computing infrastructure, have enabled significant advances in software systems that provide flood warning, assessments, and hazard reduction potential. By incorporating social and economic data

Detecting SYN flood attacks via statistical monitoring charts: A comparative study

KAUST Repository

Bouyeddou, Benamar

2017-12-14

Accurate detection of cyber-attacks plays a central role in safeguarding computer networks and information systems. This paper addresses the problem of detecting SYN flood attacks, which are the most popular Denial of Service (DoS) attacks. Here, we compare the detection capacity of three commonly monitoring charts namely, a Shewhart chart, a Cumulative Sum (CUSUM) control chart and exponentially weighted moving average (EWMA) chart, in detecting SYN flood attacks. The comparison study is conducted using the publicly available benchmark datasets: the 1999 DARPA Intrusion Detection Evaluation Datasets.

Has the magnitude of floods across the USA changed with global CO2 levels?

Science.gov (United States)

Hirsch, Robert M.; Ryberg, Karen R.

2012-01-01

Statistical relationships between annual floods at 200 long-term (85–127 years of record) streamgauges in the coterminous United States and the global mean carbon dioxide concentration (GMCO2) record are explored. The streamgauge locations are limited to those with little or no regulation or urban development. The coterminous US is divided into four large regions and stationary bootstrapping is used to evaluate if the patterns of these statistical associations are significantly different from what would be expected under the null hypothesis that flood magnitudes are independent of GMCO2. In none of the four regions defined in this study is there strong statistical evidence for flood magnitudes increasing with increasing GMCO2. One region, the southwest, showed a statistically significant negative relationship between GMCO2 and flood magnitudes. The statistical methods applied compensate both for the inter-site correlation of flood magnitudes and the shorter-term (up to a few decades) serial correlation of floods.

Coupling flood forecasting and social media crowdsourcing

Science.gov (United States)

Kalas, Milan; Kliment, Tomas; Salamon, Peter

2016-04-01

Social and mainstream media monitoring is being more and more recognized as valuable source of information in disaster management and response. The information on ongoing disasters could be detected in very short time and the social media can bring additional information to traditional data feeds (ground, remote observation schemes). Probably the biggest attempt to use the social media in the crisis management was the activation of the Digital Humanitarian Network by the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs in response to Typhoon Yolanda. The network of volunteers performing rapid needs & damage assessment by tagging reports posted to social media which were then used by machine learning classifiers as a training set to automatically identify tweets referring to both urgent needs and offers of help. In this work we will present the potential of coupling a social media streaming and news monitoring application ( GlobalFloodNews - www.globalfloodsystem.com) with a flood forecasting system (www.globalfloods.eu) and the geo-catalogue of the OGC services discovered in the Google Search Engine (WMS, WFS, WCS, etc.) to provide a full suite of information available to crisis management centers as fast as possible. In GlobalFloodNews we use advanced filtering of the real-time Twitter stream, where the relevant information is automatically extracted using natural language and signal processing techniques. The keyword filters are adjusted and optimized automatically using machine learning algorithms as new reports are added to the system. In order to refine the search results the forecasting system will be triggering an event-based search on the social media and OGC services relevant for crisis response (population distribution, critical infrastructure, hospitals etc.). The current version of the system makes use of USHAHIDI Crowdmap platform, which is designed to easily crowdsource information using multiple channels, including SMS, email

Real-time Monitoring and Simulating of Urban Flood, a Case Study in Guangzhou

Science.gov (United States)

Huang, H.; Wang, X.; Zhang, S.; Liu, Y.

2014-12-01

In recent years urban flood frequently occurred and seriously impacted city's normal operation, particular on transportation. The increase of urban flood could be attributed to many factors, such as the increase of impervious land surface and extreme precipitation, the decrease of surface storage capacity, poor maintenance of drainage utilities, and so on. In order to provide accurate and leading prediction on urban flooding, this study acquires precise urban topographic data via air-borne Lidar system, collects detailed underground drainage pipes, and installs in-situ monitoring networks on precipitation, water level, video record and traffic speed in the downtown area of Panyu District, Guangzhou, China. Based on the above data acquired, a urban flood model with EPA SWMM5 is established to simulate the flooding and inundation processes in the study area of 20 km2. The model is driven by the real-time precipitation data and calibrated by the water level data, which are converted to flooding volume with precise topographic data. After calibration, the model could be employed to conduct sensitivity analysis for investigating primary factors of urban flooding, and to simulate the flooding processes in different scenarios, which are beneficial to assessment of flooding risk and drainage capacity. This model is expected to provide real-time forecasting in emergency management.

Flood evolution assessment and monitoring using hydrological modelling techniques: analysis of the inundation areas at a regional scale

Science.gov (United States)

Podhoranyi, M.; Kuchar, S.; Portero, A.

2016-08-01

The primary objective of this study is to present techniques that cover usage of a hydrodynamic model as the main tool for monitoring and assessment of flood events while focusing on modelling of inundation areas. We analyzed the 2010 flood event (14th May - 20th May) that occurred in the Moravian-Silesian region (Czech Republic). Under investigation were four main catchments: Opava, Odra, Olše and Ostravice. Four hydrodynamic models were created and implemented into the Floreon+ platform in order to map inundation areas that arose during the flood event. In order to study the dynamics of the water, we applied an unsteady flow simulation for the entire area (HEC-RAS 4.1). The inundation areas were monitored, evaluated and recorded semi-automatically by means of the Floreon+ platform. We focused on information about the extent and presence of the flood areas. The modeled flooded areas were verified by comparing them with real data from different sources (official reports, aerial photos and hydrological networks). The study confirmed that hydrodynamic modeling is a very useful tool for mapping and monitoring of inundation areas. Overall, our models detected 48 inundation areas during the 2010 flood event.

Development of a global river-coastal coupling model and its application to flood simulation in Asian mega-delta regions

Science.gov (United States)

Ikeuchi, Hiroaki; Hirabayashi, Yukiko; Yamazaki, Dai; Muis, Sanne; Ward, Philip; Verlaan, Martin; Winsemius, Hessel; Kanae, Shinjiro

2017-04-01

The world's mega-delta regions and estuaries are susceptible to various water-related disasters, such as river flooding and storm surge. Moreover, simultaneous occurrence of them would be more devastating than a situation where they occur in isolation. Therefore, it is important to provide information about compound risks of fluvial and coastal floods at a large scale, both their statistical dependency as well as their combined resulting flooding in delta regions. Here we report on a first attempt to address this issue globally by developing a method to couple a global river model (CaMa-Flood) and a global tide and surge reanalysis (GTSR) dataset. A state-of-the-art global river routing model, CaMa-Flood, was modified to represent varying sea levels due to tides and storm surges as downstream boundary condition, and the GTSR dataset was post-processed to serve as inputs to the CaMa-Flood river routing simulation and a long-term simulation was performed to incorporate the temporal dependency between coastal tide and surge on the one hand, and discharge on the other. The coupled model was validated against observations, showing better simulation results of water levels in deltaic regions than simulation without GTSR. For example in the Ganges Delta, correlation coefficients were increased by 0.06, and root mean square errors were reduced by 0.22 m. Global coupling simulations revealed that storm surges affected river water levels in coastal regions worldwide, especially in low-lying flat areas with increases in water level larger than 0.5 m. By employing enhanced storm surge simulation with tropical storm tracks, we also applied the model to examine impacts of past hurricane and cyclone storm events on river flood inundation.

Artificial intelligence and finite element modelling for monitoring flood defence structures

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Pyayt, A.L.; Mokhov, I.I.; Kozionov, A.; Kusherbaeva, V.; Melnikova, N.B.; Krzhizhanovskaya, V.V.; Meijer, R.J.

2011-01-01

We present a hybrid approach to monitoring the stability of flood defence structures equipped with sensors. This approach combines the finite element modelling with the artificial intelligence for real-time signal processing and anomaly detection. This combined method has been developed for the

Enhancing Community Based Early Warning Systems in Nepal with Flood Forecasting Using Local and Global Models

Science.gov (United States)

Dugar, Sumit; Smith, Paul; Parajuli, Binod; Khanal, Sonu; Brown, Sarah; Gautam, Dilip; Bhandari, Dinanath; Gurung, Gehendra; Shakya, Puja; Kharbuja, RamGopal; Uprety, Madhab

2017-04-01

Operationalising effective Flood Early Warning Systems (EWS) in developing countries like Nepal poses numerous challenges, with complex topography and geology, sparse network of river and rainfall gauging stations and diverse socio-economic conditions. Despite these challenges, simple real-time monitoring based EWSs have been in place for the past decade. A key constraint of these simple systems is the very limited lead time for response - as little as 2-3 hours, especially for rivers originating from steep mountainous catchments. Efforts to increase lead time for early warning are focusing on imbedding forecasts into the existing early warning systems. In 2016, the Nepal Department of Hydrology and Meteorology (DHM) piloted an operational Probabilistic Flood Forecasting Model in major river basins across Nepal. This comprised a low data approach to forecast water levels, developed jointly through a research/practitioner partnership with Lancaster University and WaterNumbers (UK) and the International NGO Practical Action. Using Data-Based Mechanistic Modelling (DBM) techniques, the model assimilated rainfall and water levels to generate localised hourly flood predictions, which are presented as probabilistic forecasts, increasing lead times from 2-3 hours to 7-8 hours. The Nepal DHM has simultaneously started utilizing forecasts from the Global Flood Awareness System (GLoFAS) that provides streamflow predictions at the global scale based upon distributed hydrological simulations using numerical ensemble weather forecasts from the ECMWF (European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts). The aforementioned global and local models have already affected the approach to early warning in Nepal, being operational during the 2016 monsoon in the West Rapti basin in Western Nepal. On 24 July 2016, GLoFAS hydrological forecasts for the West Rapti indicated a sharp rise in river discharge above 1500 m3/sec (equivalent to the river warning level at 5 meters) with 53

A UAV based system for real time flash flood monitoring in desert environments using Lagrangian microsensors

KAUST Repository

Abdelkader, Mohamed; Shaqura, Mohammad; Claudel, Christian G.; Gueaieb, Wail

2013-01-01

with advance warning, for which real time monitoring is critical. While satellite-based high resolution weather forecasts can help predict floods to a certain extent, they are not reliable enough, as flood models depend on a large number of parameters

Characterizing Global Flood Wave Travel Times to Optimize the Utility of Near Real-Time Satellite Remote Sensing Products

Science.gov (United States)

Allen, G. H.; David, C. H.; Andreadis, K. M.; Emery, C. M.; Famiglietti, J. S.

2017-12-01

Earth observing satellites provide valuable near real-time (NRT) information about flood occurrence and magnitude worldwide. This NRT information can be used in early flood warning systems and other flood management applications to save lives and mitigate flood damage. However, these NRT products are only useful to early flood warning systems if they are quickly made available, with sufficient time for flood mitigation actions to be implemented. More specifically, NRT data latency, or the time period between the satellite observation and when the user has access to the information, must be less than the time it takes a flood to travel from the flood observation location to a given downstream point of interest. Yet the paradigm that "lower latency is always better" may not necessarily hold true in river systems due to tradeoffs between data latency and data quality. Further, the existence of statistical breaks in the global distribution of flood wave travel time (i.e. a jagged statistical distribution) would represent preferable latencies for river-observation NRT remote sensing products. Here we present a global analysis of flood wave velocity (i.e. flow celerity) and travel time. We apply a simple kinematic wave model to a global hydrography dataset and calculate flow wave celerity and travel time during bankfull flow conditions. Bankfull flow corresponds to the condition of maximum celerity and thus we present the "worst-case scenario" minimum flow wave travel time. We conduct a similar analysis with respect to the time it takes flood waves to reach the next downstream city, as well as the next downstream reservoir. Finally, we conduct these same analyses, but with regards to the technical capabilities of the planned Surface Water and Ocean Topography (SWOT) satellite mission, which is anticipated to provide waterbody elevation and extent measurements at an unprecedented spatial and temporal resolution. We validate these results with discharge records from paired

Flooding and Flood Management

Science.gov (United States)

Brooks, K.N.; Fallon, J.D.; Lorenz, D.L.; Stark, J.R.; Menard, Jason; Easter, K.W.; Perry, Jim

2011-01-01

Floods result in great human disasters globally and nationally, causing an average of $4 billion of damages each year in the United States. Minnesota has its share of floods and flood damages, and the state has awarded nearly $278 million to local units of government for flood mitigation projects through its Flood Hazard Mitigation Grant Program. Since 1995, flood mitigation in the Red River Valley has exceeded $146 million. Considerable local and state funding has been provided to manage and mitigate problems of excess stormwater in urban areas, flooding of farmlands, and flood damages at road crossings. The cumulative costs involved with floods and flood mitigation in Minnesota are not known precisely, but it is safe to conclude that flood mitigation is a costly business. This chapter begins with a description of floods in Minneosta to provide examples and contrasts across the state. Background material is presented to provide a basic understanding of floods and flood processes, predication, and management and mitigation. Methods of analyzing and characterizing floods are presented because they affect how we respond to flooding and can influence relevant practices. The understanding and perceptions of floods and flooding commonly differ among those who work in flood forecasting, flood protection, or water resource mamnagement and citizens and businesses affected by floods. These differences can become magnified following a major flood, pointing to the need for better understanding of flooding as well as common language to describe flood risks and the uncertainty associated with determining such risks. Expectations of accurate and timely flood forecasts and our ability to control floods do not always match reality. Striving for clarity is important in formulating policies that can help avoid recurring flood damages and costs.

Flood effects on an Alaskan stream restoration project: the value of long-term monitoring

Science.gov (United States)

Densmore, Roseann V.; Karle, Kenneth F.

2009-01-01

On a nationwide basis, few stream restoration projects have long-term programs in place to monitor the effects of floods on channel and floodplain configuration and floodplain vegetation, but long-term and event-based monitoring is required to measure the effects of these stochastic events and to use the knowledge for adaptive management and the design of future projects. This paper describes a long-term monitoring effort (15 years) on a stream restoration project in Glen Creek in Denali National Park and Preserve in Alaska. The stream channel and floodplain of Glen Creek had been severely degraded over a period of 80 years by placer mining for gold, which left many reaches with unstable and incised streambeds without functioning vegetated floodplains. The objectives of the original project, initiated in 1991, were to develop and test methods for the hydraulic design of channel and floodplain morphology and for floodplain stabilization and riparian habitat recovery, and to conduct research and monitoring to provide information for future projects in similar degraded watersheds. Monitoring methods included surveyed stream cross-sections, vegetation plots, and aerial, ground, and satellite photos. In this paper we address the immediate and outlying effects of a 25-year flood on the stream and floodplain geometry and riparian vegetation. The long-term monitoring revealed that significant channel widening occurred following the flood, likely caused by excessive upstream sediment loading and the fairly slow development of floodplain vegetation in this climate. Our results illustrated design flaws, particularly in regard to identification and analysis of sediment sources and the dominant processes of channel adjustment.

High resolution global flood hazard map from physically-based hydrologic and hydraulic models.

Science.gov (United States)

Begnudelli, L.; Kaheil, Y.; McCollum, J.

2017-12-01

The global flood map published online at http://www.fmglobal.com/research-and-resources/global-flood-map at 90m resolution is being used worldwide to understand flood risk exposure, exercise certain measures of mitigation, and/or transfer the residual risk financially through flood insurance programs. The modeling system is based on a physically-based hydrologic model to simulate river discharges, and 2D shallow-water hydrodynamic model to simulate inundation. The model can be applied to large-scale flood hazard mapping thanks to several solutions that maximize its efficiency and the use of parallel computing. The hydrologic component of the modeling system is the Hillslope River Routing (HRR) hydrologic model. HRR simulates hydrological processes using a Green-Ampt parameterization, and is calibrated against observed discharge data from several publicly-available datasets. For inundation mapping, we use a 2D Finite-Volume Shallow-Water model with wetting/drying. We introduce here a grid Up-Scaling Technique (UST) for hydraulic modeling to perform simulations at higher resolution at global scale with relatively short computational times. A 30m SRTM is now available worldwide along with higher accuracy and/or resolution local Digital Elevation Models (DEMs) in many countries and regions. UST consists of aggregating computational cells, thus forming a coarser grid, while retaining the topographic information from the original full-resolution mesh. The full-resolution topography is used for building relationships between volume and free surface elevation inside cells and computing inter-cell fluxes. This approach almost achieves computational speed typical of the coarse grids while preserving, to a significant extent, the accuracy offered by the much higher resolution available DEM. The simulations are carried out along each river of the network by forcing the hydraulic model with the streamflow hydrographs generated by HRR. Hydrographs are scaled so that the peak

Climate change and the global pattern of moraine-dammed glacial lake outburst floods

Science.gov (United States)

Harrison, Stephan; Kargel, Jeffrey S.; Huggel, Christian; Reynolds, John; Shugar, Dan H.; Betts, Richard A.; Emmer, Adam; Glasser, Neil; Haritashya, Umesh K.; Klimeš, Jan; Reinhardt, Liam; Schaub, Yvonne; Wiltshire, Andy; Regmi, Dhananjay; Vilímek, Vít

2018-04-01

Despite recent research identifying a clear anthropogenic impact on glacier recession, the effect of recent climate change on glacier-related hazards is at present unclear. Here we present the first global spatio-temporal assessment of glacial lake outburst floods (GLOFs) focusing explicitly on lake drainage following moraine dam failure. These floods occur as mountain glaciers recede and downwaste. GLOFs can have an enormous impact on downstream communities and infrastructure. Our assessment of GLOFs associated with the rapid drainage of moraine-dammed lakes provides insights into the historical trends of GLOFs and their distributions under current and future global climate change. We observe a clear global increase in GLOF frequency and their regularity around 1930, which likely represents a lagged response to post-Little Ice Age warming. Notably, we also show that GLOF frequency and regularity - rather unexpectedly - have declined in recent decades even during a time of rapid glacier recession. Although previous studies have suggested that GLOFs will increase in response to climate warming and glacier recession, our global results demonstrate that this has not yet clearly happened. From an assessment of the timing of climate forcing, lag times in glacier recession, lake formation and moraine-dam failure, we predict increased GLOF frequencies during the next decades and into the 22nd century.

An approach for flood monitoring by the combined use of Landsat 8 optical imagery and COSMO-SkyMed radar imagery

Science.gov (United States)

Tong, Xiaohua; Luo, Xin; Liu, Shuguang; Xie, Huan; Chao, Wei; Liu, Shuang; Liu, Shijie; Makhinov, A. N.; Makhinova, A. F.; Jiang, Yuying

2018-02-01

Remote sensing techniques offer potential for effective flood detection with the advantages of low-cost, large-scale, and real-time surface observations. The easily accessible data sources of optical remote sensing imagery provide abundant spectral information for accurate surface water body extraction, and synthetic aperture radar (SAR) systems represent a powerful tool for flood monitoring because of their all-weather capability. This paper introduces a new approach for flood monitoring by the combined use of both Landsat 8 optical imagery and COSMO-SkyMed radar imagery. Specifically, the proposed method applies support vector machine and the active contour without edges model for water extent determination in the periods before and during the flood, respectively. A map difference method is used for the flood inundation analysis. The proposed approach is particularly suitable for large-scale flood monitoring, and it was tested on a serious flood that occurred in northeastern China in August 2013, which caused immense loss of human lives and properties. High overall accuracies of 97.46% for the optical imagery and 93.70% for the radar imagery are achieved by the use of the techniques presented in this study. The results show that about 12% of the whole study area was inundated, corresponding to 5466 km2 of land surface.

Enhancement of global flood damage assessments using building material based vulnerability curves

Science.gov (United States)

Englhardt, Johanna; de Ruiter, Marleen; de Moel, Hans; Aerts, Jeroen

2017-04-01

This study discusses the development of an enhanced approach for flood damage and risk assessments using vulnerability curves that are based on building material information. The approach draws upon common practices in earthquake vulnerability assessments, and is an alternative for land-use or building occupancy approach in flood risk assessment models. The approach is of particular importance for studies where there is a large variation in building material, such as large scale studies or studies in developing countries. A case study of Ethiopia is used to demonstrate the impact of the different methodological approaches on direct damage assessments due to flooding. Generally, flood damage assessments use damage curves for different land-use or occupancy types (i.e. urban or residential and commercial classes). However, these categories do not necessarily relate directly to vulnerability of damage by flood waters. For this, the construction type and building material may be more important, as is used in earthquake risk assessments. For this study, we use building material classification data of the PAGER1 project to define new building material based vulnerability classes for flood damage. This approach will be compared to the widely applied land-use based vulnerability curves such as used by De Moel et al. (2011). The case of Ethiopia demonstrates and compares the feasibility of this novel flood vulnerability method on a country level which holds the potential to be scaled up to a global level. The study shows that flood vulnerability based on building material also allows for better differentiation between flood damage in urban and rural settings, opening doors to better link to poverty studies when such exposure data is available. Furthermore, this new approach paves the road to the enhancement of multi-risk assessments as the method enables the comparison of vulnerability across different natural hazard types that also use material-based vulnerability curves

Effects of global warming on floods and droughts in the Caribbean

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Narayan, Kailas

2004-01-01

The Caribbean islands stretch in an arc from Cuba, south of Florida, to Trinidad and Tobago, north of the South American coast. The islands range in size from 100,000 square kilometers to 100 square kilometers, with populations ranging from ten million to less than ten thousand people. There is a wide range of rainfall in the region, occurring mainly from the Inter-Tropical convergence Zone, Tropical Waves and Hurricanes. There are also extended periods of droughts in the dry season. As a result the islands suffer from droughts as well as floods. These phenomena can have devastating results on the economies of the islands, resulting in extreme hardships for the population as well as forced shifting of population centers. Change of precipitation patterns as a result of Global warming can only worsen the situation. In this paper the author attempts an investigation into the effects of global warming and the resulting impacts in terms of droughts, floods on the Caribbean islands and on coastal areas of continental countries in the Caribbean. Vulnerability and risks are also investigated in terms of these phenomena. (Author)

Development of flood index by characterisation of flood hydrographs

Science.gov (United States)

Bhattacharya, Biswa; Suman, Asadusjjaman

2015-04-01

In recent years the world has experienced deaths, large-scale displacement of people, billions of Euros of economic damage, mental stress and ecosystem impacts due to flooding. Global changes (climate change, population and economic growth, and urbanisation) are exacerbating the severity of flooding. The 2010 floods in Pakistan and the 2011 floods in Australia and Thailand demonstrate the need for concerted action in the face of global societal and environmental changes to strengthen resilience against flooding. Due to climatological characteristics there are catchments where flood forecasting may have a relatively limited role and flood event management may have to be trusted upon. For example, in flash flood catchments, which often may be tiny and un-gauged, flood event management often depends on approximate prediction tools such as flash flood guidance (FFG). There are catchments fed largely by flood waters coming from upstream catchments, which are un-gauged or due to data sharing issues in transboundary catchments the flow of information from upstream catchment is limited. Hydrological and hydraulic modelling of these downstream catchments will never be sufficient to provide any required forecasting lead time and alternative tools to support flood event management will be required. In FFG, or similar approaches, the primary motif is to provide guidance by synthesising the historical data. We follow a similar approach to characterise past flood hydrographs to determine a flood index (FI), which varies in space and time with flood magnitude and its propagation. By studying the variation of the index the pockets of high flood risk, requiring attention, can be earmarked beforehand. This approach can be very useful in flood risk management of catchments where information about hydro-meteorological variables is inadequate for any forecasting system. This paper presents the development of FI and its application to several catchments including in Kentucky in the USA

Assessment of the Change Detection Procedure Dedicated to Flood Monitoring Using Envisat Wide Swath Mode Data

Science.gov (United States)

Li, Jiren; Yesou, Herve; Malosti, Rita; Andreoli, Remi; Huang, Shifeng; Xin, Jingfeng; Cattaneo, Fabrizia

2008-04-01

The Flood Dragon project enhances the Envisat contribution for natural disaster monitoring. Flood DFRAGON project had much more exploited the ENVISAT resource for crisis management than the International Charter Space and major Disasters since 2002. Indeed, during the 2005, 2006 and 2007 Chinese flood seasons, over the 27 attempted NRT exploitations of Envisat, 23 were successful. Obtained results over floods, affecting Yangtze and Songua, Huaihe watersheds as pollution events on Taihue lake and Nen River are illustrated. Lessons are discussed in terms of programming, downloading, processing, and images type and format. Recommendations for the background mission of the future Sentinel 1 constellation are given.

Use of NOAA-N satellites for land/water discrimination and flood monitoring

Science.gov (United States)

Tappan, G.; Horvath, N. C.; Doraiswamy, P. C.; Engman, T.; Goss, D. W. (Principal Investigator)

1983-01-01

A tool for monitoring the extent of major floods was developed using data collected by the NOAA-6 advanced very high resolution radiometer (AVHRR). A basic understanding of the spectral returns in AVHRR channels 1 and 2 for water, soil, and vegetation was reached using a large number of NOAA-6 scenes from different seasons and geographic locations. A look-up table classifier was developed based on analysis of the reflective channel relationships for each surface feature. The classifier automatically separated land from water and produced classification maps which were registered for a number of acquisitions, including coverage of a major flood on the Parana River of Argentina.

Climate change and the global pattern of moraine-dammed glacial lake outburst floods

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

S. Harrison

2018-04-01

Full Text Available Despite recent research identifying a clear anthropogenic impact on glacier recession, the effect of recent climate change on glacier-related hazards is at present unclear. Here we present the first global spatio-temporal assessment of glacial lake outburst floods (GLOFs focusing explicitly on lake drainage following moraine dam failure. These floods occur as mountain glaciers recede and downwaste. GLOFs can have an enormous impact on downstream communities and infrastructure. Our assessment of GLOFs associated with the rapid drainage of moraine-dammed lakes provides insights into the historical trends of GLOFs and their distributions under current and future global climate change. We observe a clear global increase in GLOF frequency and their regularity around 1930, which likely represents a lagged response to post-Little Ice Age warming. Notably, we also show that GLOF frequency and regularity – rather unexpectedly – have declined in recent decades even during a time of rapid glacier recession. Although previous studies have suggested that GLOFs will increase in response to climate warming and glacier recession, our global results demonstrate that this has not yet clearly happened. From an assessment of the timing of climate forcing, lag times in glacier recession, lake formation and moraine-dam failure, we predict increased GLOF frequencies during the next decades and into the 22nd century.

Monitoring Streambed Scour/Deposition Under Nonideal Temperature Signal and Flood Conditions

Science.gov (United States)

DeWeese, Timothy; Tonina, Daniele; Luce, Charles

2017-12-01

Streambed erosion and deposition are fundamental geomorphic processes in riverbeds, and monitoring their evolution is important for ecological system management and in-stream infrastructure stability. Previous research showed proof of concept that analysis of paired temperature signals of stream and pore waters can simultaneously provide monitoring scour and deposition, stream sediment thermal regime, and seepage velocity information. However, it did not address challenges often associated with natural systems, including nonideal temperature variations (low-amplitude, nonsinusoidal signal, and vertical thermal gradients) and natural flooding conditions on monitoring scour and deposition processes over time. Here we addressed this knowledge gap by testing the proposed thermal scour-deposition chain (TSDC) methodology, with laboratory experiments to test the impact of nonideal temperature signals under a range of seepage velocities and with a field application during a pulse flood. Both analyses showed excellent match between surveyed and temperature-derived bed elevation changes even under very low temperature signal amplitudes (less than 1°C), nonideal signal shape (sawtooth shape), and strong and changing vertical thermal gradients (4°C/m). Root-mean-square errors on predicting the change in streambed elevations were comparable with the median grain size of the streambed sediment. Future research should focus on improved techniques for temperature signal phase and amplitude extractions, as well as TSDC applications over long periods spanning entire hydrographs.

Coping with Future Coastal Floods in Denmark—Advancing the Use of Global Frameworks

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Jebens, Martin; Sørensen, Carlo Sass

2017-01-01

The main aim of Disaster Risk Management and Climate Change Adaptation is to lower the risk for the population and the society at large. Risk assessments constitute an important part of flood risk management and their quality is crucial to well-informed decision making. This requires an in......-depth understanding of the society and its vulnerabilities. Often attention to the flood risk and vulnerability in developed countries is absent due to the assumption that society can cope with disaster; For Denmark, a mixed methods’ research inquiry reveals that this is not always the case. In a critique of current...... Danish approaches to deal with Disaster Risk Management and Climate Change Adaptation including coordination and planning, the paper proposes a new pathway for coping with the risks of coastal floods: Global frameworks like the Hyogo and Sendai tailored to suit Danish conditions may serve to mainstream...

Monitoring Coastal Marshes for Persistent Flooding and Salinity Stress

Science.gov (United States)

Kalcic, Maria

2010-01-01

Our objective is to provide NASA remote sensing products that provide inundation and salinity information on an ecosystem level to support habitat switching models. Project born out of need by the Coastal Restoration Monitoring System (CRMS), joint effort by Louisiana Department of Natural Resources and the U.S. Geological Survey, for information on persistence of flooding by storm surge and other flood waters. The results of the this work support the habitat-switching modules in the Coastal Louisiana Ecosystem Assessment and Restoration (CLEAR) model, which provides scientific evaluation for restoration management. CLEAR is a collaborative effort between the Louisiana Board of Regents, the Louisiana Department of Natural Resources (LDNR), the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS), and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers (USACE). Anticipated results will use: a) Resolution enhanced time series data combining spatial resolution of Landsat with temporal resolution of MODIS for inundation estimates. b) Potential salinity products from radar and multispectral modeling. c) Combined inundation and salinity inputs to habitat switching module to produce habitat switching maps (shown at left)

Flood risk and adaptation strategies under climate change and urban expansion: A probabilistic analysis using global data.

Science.gov (United States)

Muis, Sanne; Güneralp, Burak; Jongman, Brenden; Aerts, Jeroen C J H; Ward, Philip J

2015-12-15

An accurate understanding of flood risk and its drivers is crucial for effective risk management. Detailed risk projections, including uncertainties, are however rarely available, particularly in developing countries. This paper presents a method that integrates recent advances in global-scale modeling of flood hazard and land change, which enables the probabilistic analysis of future trends in national-scale flood risk. We demonstrate its application to Indonesia. We develop 1000 spatially-explicit projections of urban expansion from 2000 to 2030 that account for uncertainty associated with population and economic growth projections, as well as uncertainty in where urban land change may occur. The projections show that the urban extent increases by 215%-357% (5th and 95th percentiles). Urban expansion is particularly rapid on Java, which accounts for 79% of the national increase. From 2000 to 2030, increases in exposure will elevate flood risk by, on average, 76% and 120% for river and coastal floods. While sea level rise will further increase the exposure-induced trend by 19%-37%, the response of river floods to climate change is highly uncertain. However, as urban expansion is the main driver of future risk, the implementation of adaptation measures is increasingly urgent, regardless of the wide uncertainty in climate projections. Using probabilistic urban projections, we show that spatial planning can be a very effective adaptation strategy. Our study emphasizes that global data can be used successfully for probabilistic risk assessment in data-scarce countries. Copyright © 2015 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Development of Hydrometeorological Monitoring and Forecasting as AN Essential Component of the Early Flood Warning System:

Science.gov (United States)

Manukalo, V.

2012-12-01

Defining issue The river inundations are the most common and destructive natural hazards in Ukraine. Among non-structural flood management and protection measures a creation of the Early Flood Warning System is extremely important to be able to timely recognize dangerous situations in the flood-prone areas. Hydrometeorological information and forecasts are a core importance in this system. The primary factors affecting reliability and a lead - time of forecasts include: accuracy, speed and reliability with which real - time data are collected. The existing individual conception of monitoring and forecasting resulted in a need in reconsideration of the concept of integrated monitoring and forecasting approach - from "sensors to database and forecasters". Result presentation The Project: "Development of Flood Monitoring and Forecasting in the Ukrainian part of the Dniester River Basin" is presented. The project is developed by the Ukrainian Hydrometeorological Service in a conjunction with the Water Management Agency and the Energy Company "Ukrhydroenergo". The implementation of the Project is funded by the Ukrainian Government and the World Bank. The author is nominated as the responsible person for coordination of activity of organizations involved in the Project. The term of the Project implementation: 2012 - 2014. The principal objectives of the Project are: a) designing integrated automatic hydrometeorological measurement network (including using remote sensing technologies); b) hydrometeorological GIS database construction and coupling with electronic maps for flood risk assessment; c) interface-construction classic numerical database -GIS and with satellite images, and radar data collection; d) providing the real-time data dissemination from observation points to forecasting centers; e) developing hydrometeoroogical forecasting methods; f) providing a flood hazards risk assessment for different temporal and spatial scales; g) providing a dissemination of

Droughts and floods monitoring in Poland with SMOS, SEVIRI and model data

Science.gov (United States)

Kotarba, A. Z.; Stankiewicz, K.; Słomiński, J.; Słomińska, E.; Marczewski, W.

2012-04-01

Droughts and floods represent the extreme cases of hydrological regime. Both significantly influence ecological processes in the environment as well as socio-economic situation of human activity. Measurements of soil moisture and rainfall is being recognized as fundamental for droughts and floods monitoring. We used Soil Moisture and Ocean Salinity (SMOS) L2 soil moisture data and Spinning Enhanced Visible and InfraRed Imager (SEVIRI) rain rate approximation to evaluate the intensity and extend of droughts/floods events in Poland in 2010 and 2011. SEVIRI Multi-Sensor Precipitation Estimate rain rates were used for calculation of monthly rain accumulation (24 SEVIRI L2 datasets per day), then projected to match SMOS spatial reference. Based on SEVIRI data, monthly sum of precipitation was estimated for each SMOS DGG cell within area of interest (the ROI covers Poland and the closest neighborhood). At the DGG level, SMOS SM and SEVIRI precipitation data were compared for each month since May 2010. Nearly two year series provided a background for droughts and floods events. Final L3 products of SMOS SM and SEVIRI precipitation were compared with operational, traditionally-developed drought risk maps, in order to evaluate the degree of agreement between remotely sensed products and models calculated with surface-based measurements only.

Near-Bed Monitoring of Suspended Sediment during a Major Flood Event Highlights Deficiencies in Existing Event-Loading Estimates

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Alistair Grinham

2018-01-01

Full Text Available Rates of fluvial sediment discharge are notoriously difficult to quantify, particularly during major flood events. Measurements are typically undertaken using event stations requiring large capital investment, and the high cost tends to reduce the spatial coverage of monitoring sites. This study aimed to characterise the near-bed suspended sediment dynamics during a major flood event using a low-cost approach. Monitoring nodes consisted of a total suspended sediment (TSS logger, a single stage sampler, and a time-lapse camera for a total cost of less than US$420. Seven nodes were deployed across an elevation gradient on the stream bank of Laidley Creek, Queensland, Australia, and two of these nodes successfully characterised the near-bed suspended sediment dynamics across a major flood event. Near-bed TSS concentrations were closely related to stream flow, with the contribution of suspended bed material dominating the total suspended load during peak flows. Observed TSS concentrations were orders of magnitude higher than historical monitoring data for this site collected using the State government event station. This difference was attributed to the event station pump inlet screening the suspended bed material prior to sample collection. The ‘first flush’ phenomenon was detected and attributed to a local resuspension of muddy crusts immediately upstream of the study site. This low-cost approach will provide an important addition to the existing monitoring of fluvial sediment discharge during flood events.

Providing global WLCG transfer monitoring

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Andreeva, J; Dieguez Arias, D; Campana, S; Keeble, O; Magini, N; Molnar, Z; Ro, G; Saiz, P; Salichos, M; Tuckett, D; Flix, J; Oleynik, D; Petrosyan, A; Uzhinsky, A; Wildish, T

2012-01-01

The WLCG[1] Transfers Dashboard is a monitoring system which aims to provide a global view of WLCG data transfers and to reduce redundancy in monitoring tasks performed by the LHC experiments. The system is designed to work transparently across LHC experiments and across the various technologies used for data transfer. Currently each LHC experiment monitors data transfers via experiment-specific systems but the overall cross-experiment picture is missing. Even for data transfers handled by FTS, which is used by 3 LHC experiments, monitoring tasks such as aggregation of FTS transfer statistics or estimation of transfer latencies are performed by every experiment separately. These tasks could be performed once, centrally, and then served to all experiments via a well-defined set of APIs. In the design and development of the new system, experience accumulated by the LHC experiments in the data management monitoring area is taken into account and a considerable part of the code of the ATLAS DDM Dashboard is being re-used. The paper describes the architecture of the Global Transfer monitoring system, the implementation of its components and the first prototype.

Hybrid environmental robot: a tool for monitoring gas on flooded area; Robo ambiental hibrido: utilizacao como ferramenta para monitoramento de gases em areas alagadas

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Goes, Emerson de; Cerqueira, Romulo Curty; Reis, Ney Robinson S. [PETROBRAS, Rio de Janeiro, RJ (Brazil)

2008-07-01

The impoundment of rivers for power generation leads to flooding of vast areas of land vegetation. Most submerged plants, die and enter into decomposition, releasing CO2 (carbon dioxide), CH4 (methane gas) into the air for many years. Scientists from around the world seek to clarify the processes to which these gases are submitted and their contributions to the process of global warming. Estimates suggest that the re-use of methane that passes through the turbines of these power plants could increase their energy potential by 75% and reduce their emissions of these gases by 65%, reducing their impact on global warming and resulting in carbon credits. To check the feasibility of using new processes and technologies to generate energy that recycles this biogas, operations for monitoring these biogases become routine tasks. The frequency is such that the exposure of humans to the risks of gas combustion, inherent to scenarios where these operations take place, becomes unacceptable. This motivates the use of robots in this activity. This paper presents the multi-mission platform Hybrid Environmental Robot, named 'Chico Mendes', as a tool for tracking gas emission and specially designed for flooded forest areas.

Multi-model ensemble projections of European river floods and high flows at 1.5, 2, and 3 degrees global warming

Science.gov (United States)

Thober, Stephan; Kumar, Rohini; Wanders, Niko; Marx, Andreas; Pan, Ming; Rakovec, Oldrich; Samaniego, Luis; Sheffield, Justin; Wood, Eric F.; Zink, Matthias

2018-01-01

Severe river floods often result in huge economic losses and fatalities. Since 1980, almost 1500 such events have been reported in Europe. This study investigates climate change impacts on European floods under 1.5, 2, and 3 K global warming. The impacts are assessed employing a multi-model ensemble containing three hydrologic models (HMs: mHM, Noah-MP, PCR-GLOBWB) forced by five CMIP5 general circulation models (GCMs) under three Representative Concentration Pathways (RCPs 2.6, 6.0, and 8.5). This multi-model ensemble is unprecedented with respect to the combination of its size (45 realisations) and its spatial resolution, which is 5 km over the entirety of Europe. Climate change impacts are quantified for high flows and flood events, represented by 10% exceedance probability and annual maxima of daily streamflow, respectively. The multi-model ensemble points to the Mediterranean region as a hotspot of changes with significant decrements in high flows from -11% at 1.5 K up to -30% at 3 K global warming mainly resulting from reduced precipitation. Small changes (impacts of global warming could be similar under 1.5 K and 2 K global warming, but have to account for significantly higher changes under 3 K global warming.

The effect of floods on anemia among reproductive age women in Afghanistan.

Science.gov (United States)

Oskorouchi, Hamid Reza; Nie, Peng; Sousa-Poza, Alfonso

2018-01-01

This study uses biomarker information from the 2013 National Nutrition Survey Afghanistan and satellite precipitation driven modeling results from the Global Flood Monitoring System to analyze how floods affect the probability of anemia in Afghan women of reproductive age (15-49). In addition to establishing a causal relation between the two by exploiting the quasi-random variation of floods in different districts and periods, the analysis demonstrates that floods have a significant positive effect on the probability of anemia through two possible transmission mechanisms. The first is a significant effect on inflammation, probably related to water borne diseases carried by unsafe drinking water, and the second is a significant negative effect on retinol concentrations. Because the effect of floods on anemia remains significant even after we control for anemia's most common causes, we argue that the condition may also be affected by elevated levels of psychological stress.

Towards a global terrestrial species monitoring program

Science.gov (United States)

Schmeller, Dirk S.; Julliard, Romain; Bellingham, Peter J.; Böhm, Monika; Brummitt, Neil; Chiarucci, Alessandro; Couvet, Denis; Elmendorf, Sarah; Forsyth, David M.; Moreno, Jaime García; Gregory, Richard D.; Magnusson, William E.; Martin, Laura J.; McGeoch, Melodie A.; Mihoub, Jean-Baptiste; Pereira, Henrique M.; Proença, Vânia; van Swaay, Chris A.M.; Yahara, Tetsukazu; Belnap, Jayne

2015-01-01

Introduction: The Convention for Biological Diversity’s (CBD) Strategic Plan for Biodiversity 2011-2020 envisions that “By 2050, biodiversity is valued, conserved, restored and wisely used, maintaining ecosystem services, sustaining a healthy planet and delivering benefits essential for all people.” Although 193 parties have adopted these goals, there is little infrastructure in place to monitor global biodiversity trends. Recent international conservation policy requires such data to be up-to-date, reliable, comparable among sites, relevant, and understandable; as is becoming obvious from the work plan adopted by the Intergovernmental Panel for Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES: www.ipbes.net/; http://tinyurl.com/ohdnknq). In order to meet the five strategic goals of the Strategic Plan for Biodiversity 2011-2020 and its 20 accompanying Aichi Targets for 2020 (www.cbd.int/sp/targets/), advances need to be made in coordinating large-scale biodiversity monitoring and linking these with environmental data to develop a comprehensive Global Observation Network, as is the main idea behind GEOSS the Global Earth Observation System of Systems (Christian 2005)...Here we identify ten requirements important for the successful implementation of a global biodiversity monitoring network under the flag of GEO BON and especially a global terrestrial species monitoring program.

Petascale Diagnostic Assessment of the Global Portfolio Rainfall Space Missions' Ability to Support Flood Forecasting

Science.gov (United States)

Reed, P. M.; Chaney, N.; Herman, J. D.; Wood, E. F.; Ferringer, M. P.

2015-12-01

This research represents a multi-institutional collaboration between Cornell University, The Aerospace Corporation, and Princeton University that has completed a Petascale diagnostic assessment of the current 10 satellite missions providing rainfall observations. Our diagnostic assessment has required four core tasks: (1) formally linking high-resolution astrodynamics design and coordination of space assets with their global hydrological impacts within a Petascale "many-objective" global optimization framework, (2) developing a baseline diagnostic evaluation of a 1-degree resolution global implementation of the Variable Infiltration Capacity (VIC) model to establish the required satellite observation frequencies and coverage to maintain acceptable global flood forecasts, (3) evaluating the limitations and vulnerabilities of the full suite of current satellite precipitation missions including the recently approved Global Precipitation Measurement (GPM) mission, and (4) conceptualizing the next generation spaced-based platforms for water cycle observation. Our team exploited over 100 Million hours of computing access on the 700,000+ core Blue Waters machine to radically advance our ability to discover and visualize key system tradeoffs and sensitivities. This project represents to our knowledge the first attempt to develop a 10,000 member Monte Carlo global hydrologic simulation at one degree resolution that characterizes the uncertain effects of changing the available frequencies of satellite precipitation on drought and flood forecasts. The simulation—optimization components of the work have set a theoretical baseline for the best possible frequencies and coverages for global precipitation given unlimited investment, broad international coordination in reconfiguring existing assets, and new satellite constellation design objectives informed directly by key global hydrologic forecasting requirements. Our research poses a step towards realizing the integrated

Annual report on global environmental monitoring - 1993

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

1993-01-01

In recent decades, scientific evidence from long-term monitoring has revealed the creeping destruction of ecosystems upon which human existence depends. Recognition of this destruction is changing the international policies used to manage our planet. Vast quantities of information regarding the status of the global environment is necessary in order to achieve a solid consensus among nations for environmental policies. To detect global change early, systematic monitoring with coverage of the entire surface of the earth should be implemented under close coordination among countries and researchers from different disciplines. The resulting precise and accurate measurements should be integrated in a timely fashion into an internationally coordinated database which will be available to the decision makers. In view of this concept, the Center for Global Environmental Research was established in 1990 and started work on monitoring, data management, modeling and their integration. CGER's field of monitoring covers the stratosphere, troposphere, fresh water, marine and terrestrial ecosystems. Groups of researchers are organized to design and conduct the monitoring. After intensive examination by these researchers, the resulting data are compiled into this report to be used in academic society as well as to serve decision makers. In 1993 two series of monitoring data reached this stage of publishing. This report contains the results of the Ozone Lidar Monitoring Program and the Japan-Korea Marine Biogeochemical Monitoring Program. The Center for Global Environmental Research very much appreciates both the research staff of these programs for their long-term and patient measurements and the advisory members for their valuable recommendations to the staffs. Those researchers who wish to examine and utilize the raw or primary data are strongly encouraged to contact the Monitoring Section of the center

Forecast-based Integrated Flood Detection System for Emergency Response and Disaster Risk Reduction (Flood-FINDER)

Science.gov (United States)

Arcorace, Mauro; Silvestro, Francesco; Rudari, Roberto; Boni, Giorgio; Dell'Oro, Luca; Bjorgo, Einar

2016-04-01

Most flood prone areas in the globe are mainly located in developing countries where making communities more flood resilient is a priority. Despite different flood forecasting initiatives are now available from academia and research centers, what is often missing is the connection between the timely hazard detection and the community response to warnings. In order to bridge the gap between science and decision makers, UN agencies play a key role on the dissemination of information in the field and on capacity-building to local governments. In this context, having a reliable global early warning system in the UN would concretely improve existing in house capacities for Humanitarian Response and the Disaster Risk Reduction. For those reasons, UNITAR-UNOSAT has developed together with USGS and CIMA Foundation a Global Flood EWS called "Flood-FINDER". The Flood-FINDER system is a modelling chain which includes meteorological, hydrological and hydraulic models that are accurately linked to enable the production of warnings and forecast inundation scenarios up to three weeks in advance. The system is forced with global satellite derived precipitation products and Numerical Weather Prediction outputs. The modelling chain is based on the "Continuum" hydrological model and risk assessments produced for GAR2015. In combination with existing hydraulically reconditioned SRTM data and 1D hydraulic models, flood scenarios are derived at multiple scales and resolutions. Climate and flood data are shared through a Web GIS integrated platform. First validation of the modelling chain has been conducted through a flood hindcasting test case, over the Chao Phraya river basin in Thailand, using multi temporal satellite-based analysis derived for the exceptional flood event of 2011. In terms of humanitarian relief operations, the EO-based services of flood mapping in rush mode generally suffer from delays caused by the time required for their activation, programming, acquisitions and

Monitoring Global Food Security with New Remote Sensing Products and Tools

Science.gov (United States)

Budde, M. E.; Rowland, J.; Senay, G. B.; Funk, C. C.; Husak, G. J.; Magadzire, T.; Verdin, J. P.

2012-12-01

Global agriculture monitoring is a crucial aspect of monitoring food security in the developing world. The Famine Early Warning Systems Network (FEWS NET) has a long history of using remote sensing and crop modeling to address food security threats in the form of drought, floods, pests, and climate change. In recent years, it has become apparent that FEWS NET requires the ability to apply monitoring and modeling frameworks at a global scale to assess potential impacts of foreign production and markets on food security at regional, national, and local levels. Scientists at the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) Earth Resources Observation and Science (EROS) Center and the University of California Santa Barbara (UCSB) Climate Hazards Group have provided new and improved data products as well as visualization and analysis tools in support of the increased mandate for remote monitoring. We present our monitoring products for measuring actual evapotranspiration (ETa), normalized difference vegetation index (NDVI) in a near-real-time mode, and satellite-based rainfall estimates and derivatives. USGS FEWS NET has implemented a Simplified Surface Energy Balance (SSEB) model to produce operational ETa anomalies for Africa and Central Asia. During the growing season, ETa anomalies express surplus or deficit crop water use, which is directly related to crop condition and biomass. We present current operational products and provide supporting validation of the SSEB model. The expedited Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (eMODIS) production system provides FEWS NET with an improved NDVI dataset for crop and rangeland monitoring. eMODIS NDVI provides a reliable data stream with a relatively high spatial resolution (250-m) and short latency period (less than 12 hours) which allows for better operational vegetation monitoring. We provide an overview of these data and cite specific applications for crop monitoring. FEWS NET uses satellite rainfall estimates as inputs for

Global SWOT Data Assimilation of River Hydrodynamic Model; the Twin Simulation Test of CaMa-Flood

Science.gov (United States)

Ikeshima, D.; Yamazaki, D.; Kanae, S.

2016-12-01

CaMa-Flood is a global scale model for simulating hydrodynamics in large scale rivers. It can simulate river hydrodynamics such as river discharge, flooded area, water depth and so on by inputting water runoff derived from land surface model. Recently many improvements at parameters or terrestrial data are under process to enhance the reproducibility of true natural phenomena. However, there are still some errors between nature and simulated result due to uncertainties in each model. SWOT (Surface water and Ocean Topography) is a satellite, which is going to be launched in 2021, can measure open water surface elevation. SWOT observed data can be used to calibrate hydrodynamics model at river flow forecasting and is expected to improve model's accuracy. Combining observation data into model to calibrate is called data assimilation. In this research, we developed data-assimilated river flow simulation system in global scale, using CaMa-Flood as river hydrodynamics model and simulated SWOT as observation data. Generally at data assimilation, calibrating "model value" with "observation value" makes "assimilated value". However, the observed data of SWOT satellite will not be available until its launch in 2021. Instead, we simulated the SWOT observed data using CaMa-Flood. Putting "pure input" into CaMa-Flood produce "true water storage". Extracting actual daily swath of SWOT from "true water storage" made simulated observation. For "model value", we made "disturbed water storage" by putting "noise disturbed input" to CaMa-Flood. Since both "model value" and "observation value" are made by same model, we named this twin simulation. At twin simulation, simulated observation of "true water storage" is combined with "disturbed water storage" to make "assimilated value". As the data assimilation method, we used ensemble Kalman filter. If "assimilated value" is closer to "true water storage" than "disturbed water storage", the data assimilation can be marked effective. Also

IoT-based flood embankments monitoring system

Science.gov (United States)

Michta, E.; Szulim, R.; Sojka-Piotrowska, A.; Piotrowski, K.

2017-08-01

In the paper a concept of flood embankments monitoring system based on using Internet of Things approach and Cloud Computing technologies will be presented. The proposed system consists of sensors, IoT nodes, Gateways and Cloud based services. Nodes communicates with the sensors measuring certain physical parameters describing the state of the embankments and communicates with the Gateways. Gateways are specialized active devices responsible for direct communication with the nodes, collecting sensor data, preprocess the data, applying local rules and communicate with the Cloud Services using communication API delivered by cloud services providers. Architecture of all of the system components will be proposed consisting IoT devices functionalities description, their communication model, software modules and services bases on using a public cloud computing platform like Microsoft Azure will be proposed. The most important aspects of maintaining the communication in a secure way will be shown.

Using satellite images to monitor glacial-lake outburst floods: Lago Cachet Dos drainage, Chile

Science.gov (United States)

Friesen, Beverly A.; Cole, Christopher J.; Nimick, David A.; Wilson, Earl M.; Fahey, Mark J.; McGrath, Daniel J.; Leidich, Jonathan

2015-01-01

The U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) is monitoring and analyzing glacial-lake outburst floods (GLOFs) in the Colonia valley in the Patagonia region of southern Chile. A GLOF is a type of flood that occurs when water impounded by a glacier or a glacial moraine is released catastrophically. In the Colonia valley, GLOFs originating from Lago Cachet Dos, which is dammed by the Colonia Glacier, have recurred periodically since 2008. The water discharged during these GLOFs flows under or through the Colonia Glacier, into Lago Colonia and then the Río Colonia, and finally into the Río Baker—Chile's largest river in terms of volume of water.

Characteristics and Future Changes of Great Mississippi Flood Events in a Global Coupled Climate Model

Science.gov (United States)

van der Wiel, K.; Kapnick, S. B.; Vecchi, G.; Smith, J. A.

2017-12-01

The Mississippi-Missouri river catchment houses millions of people and much of the U.S. national agricultural production. Severe flooding events can therefore have large negative societal, natural and economic impacts. GFDL FLOR, a global coupled climate model (atmosphere, ocean, land, sea ice with integrated river routing module) is used to investigate the characteristics of great Mississippi floods with an average return period of 100 years. Model experiments under pre-industrial greenhouse gas forcing were conducted for 3400 years, such that the most extreme flooding events were explicitly modeled and the land and/or atmospheric causes could be investigated. It is shown that melt of snow pack and frozen sub-surface water in the Missouri and Upper Mississippi basins prime the river system, subsequently sensitizing it to above average precipitation in the Ohio and Tennessee basins. The months preceding the greatest flooding events are above average wet, leading to moist sub-surface conditions. Anomalous melt depends on the availability of frozen water in the catchment, therefore anomalous amounts of sub-surface frozen water and anomalous large snow pack in winter (Nov-Feb) make the river system susceptible for these great flooding events in spring (Feb-Apr). An additional experiment of 1200 years under transient greenhouse gas forcing (RCP4.5, 5 members) was done to investigate potential future change in flood risk. Based on a peak-over-threshold method, it is found that the number of great flooding events decreases in a warmer future. This decrease coincides with decreasing occurrence of large melt events, but is despite increasing numbers of large precipitation events. Though the model results indicate a decreasing risk for the greatest flooding events, the predictability of events might decrease in a warmer future given the changing characters of melt and precipitation.

Global sea-level rise is recognised, but flooding from anthropogenic land subsidence is ignored around northern Manila Bay, Philippines.

Science.gov (United States)

Rodolfo, Kelvin S; Siringan, Fernando P

2006-03-01

Land subsidence resulting from excessive extraction of groundwater is particularly acute in East Asian countries. Some Philippine government sectors have begun to recognise that the sea-level rise of one to three millimetres per year due to global warming is a cause of worsening floods around Manila Bay, but are oblivious to, or ignore, the principal reason: excessive groundwater extraction is lowering the land surface by several centimetres to more than a decimetre per year. Such ignorance allows the government to treat flooding as a lesser problem that can be mitigated through large infrastructural projects that are both ineffective and vulnerable to corruption. Money would be better spent on preventing the subsidence by reducing groundwater pumping and moderating population growth and land use, but these approaches are politically and psychologically unacceptable. Even if groundwater use is greatly reduced and enlightened land-use practices are initiated, natural deltaic subsidence and global sea-level rise will continue to aggravate flooding, although at substantially lower rates.

Multi-model ensemble projections of European river floods and high flows at 1.5, 2, and 3 degree global warming

Science.gov (United States)

Thober, S.; Kumar, R.; Wanders, N.; Marx, A.; Pan, M.; Rakovec, O.; Samaniego, L. E.; Sheffield, J.; Wood, E. F.; Zink, M.

2017-12-01

Severe river floods often result in huge economic losses and fatalities. Since 1980, almost 1500 such events have been reported in Europe. This study investigates climate change impacts on European floods under 1.5, 2, and 3 K global warming. The impacts are assessed employing a multi-model ensemble containing three hydrologic models (HMs: mHM, Noah-MP, PCR-GLOBWB) forced by five CMIP5 General Circulation Models (GCMs) under three Representative Concentration Pathways (RCPs 2.6, 6.0, and 8.5). This multi-model ensemble is unprecedented with respect to the combination of its size (45 realisations) and its spatial resolution, which is 5 km over entire Europe. Climate change impacts are quantified for high flows and flood events, represented by 10% exceedance probability and annual maxima of daily streamflow, respectively. The multi-model ensemble points to the Mediterranean region as a hotspot of changes with significant decrements in high flows from -11% at 1.5 K up to -30% at 3 K global warming mainly resulting from reduced precipitation. Small changes (< ±10%) are observed for river basins in Central Europe and the British Isles under different levels of warming. Projected higher annual precipitation increases high flows in Scandinavia, but reduced snow water equivalent decreases flood events in this region. The contribution by the GCMs to the overall uncertainties of the ensemble is in general higher than that by the HMs. The latter, however, have a substantial share of the overall uncertainty and exceed GCM uncertainty in the Mediterranean and Scandinavia. Adaptation measures for limiting the impacts of global warming could be similar under 1.5 K and 2 K global warming, but has to account for significantly higher changes under 3 K global warming.

Water Quality Dynamics of Urban Water Bodies during Flooding in Can Tho City, Vietnam

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Hong Quan Nguyen

2017-04-01

Full Text Available Water pollution associated with flooding is one of the major problems in cities in the global South. However, studies of water quality dynamics during flood events are not often reported in literature, probably due to difficult conditions for sampling during flood events. Water quality parameters in open water (canals, rivers, and lakes, flood water on roads and water in sewers have been monitored during the extreme fluvial flood event on 7 October 2013 in the city of Can Tho, Vietnam. This is the pioneering study of urban flood water pollution in real time in Vietnam. The results showed that water quality is very dynamic during flooding, especially at the beginning of the event. In addition, it was observed that the pathogen and contaminant levels in the flood water are almost as high as in sewers. The findings show that population exposed to flood water runs a health risk that is nearly equal to that of being in contact with sewer water. Therefore, the people of Can Tho not only face physical risk due to flooding, but are also exposed to health risks.

Floods in a changing climate

Science.gov (United States)

Theresa K. Andersen; Marshall J. Shepherd

2013-01-01

Atmospheric warming and associated hydrological changes have implications for regional flood intensity and frequency. Climate models and hydrological models have the ability to integrate various contributing factors and assess potential changes to hydrology at global to local scales through the century. This survey of floods in a changing climate reviews flood...

Global warming may lead to catastrophic floods in the Himalayas

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Tveitdal, Svein; Bjoerke, Aake

2002-01-01

In Nepal, data from 49 surveillance stations show that there has been a distinct temperature increase since the middle of the 1970s, the greatest changes being on the highest summits. When lakes overfill and beaches threaten to break down, this is a result of the global warming that melts the glaciers. The glaciers in Bhutan are observed to decrease by 30 - 40 metres per year, in some years as much as 100 metres. In the village of Tribeni an advanced warning system has been established to warn the 10 000 inhabitants of a potential flood from Lake Tsho Rolpa 108 km upstream. Research from the Himalayas also point to another serious threat. The melting threatens not only human lives, tourism, foot paths, roads, bridges and power stations. Since the mountains are the water towers of the world, filling rivers and lakes with water upon which all life depends, continued shrinking of the world's glaciers as is now observed will cause many rivers and fresh-water systems to dry out. Researchers from the UN Unep programme and International Centre for Integrated Mountain Development have registered at least 44 glacier lakes that are increasing so fast that they may cause outburst floods within five years. Similar investigations are being planned in India, Pakistan and China

Case studies of extended model-based flood forecasting: prediction of dike strength and flood impacts

Science.gov (United States)

Stuparu, Dana; Bachmann, Daniel; Bogaard, Tom; Twigt, Daniel; Verkade, Jan; de Bruijn, Karin; de Leeuw, Annemargreet

2017-04-01

Flood forecasts, warning and emergency response are important components in flood risk management. Most flood forecasting systems use models to translate weather predictions to forecasted discharges or water levels. However, this information is often not sufficient for real time decisions. A sound understanding of the reliability of embankments and flood dynamics is needed to react timely and reduce the negative effects of the flood. Where are the weak points in the dike system? When, how much and where the water will flow? When and where is the greatest impact expected? Model-based flood impact forecasting tries to answer these questions by adding new dimensions to the existing forecasting systems by providing forecasted information about: (a) the dike strength during the event (reliability), (b) the flood extent in case of an overflow or a dike failure (flood spread) and (c) the assets at risk (impacts). This work presents three study-cases in which such a set-up is applied. Special features are highlighted. Forecasting of dike strength. The first study-case focusses on the forecast of dike strength in the Netherlands for the river Rhine branches Waal, Nederrijn and IJssel. A so-called reliability transformation is used to translate the predicted water levels at selected dike sections into failure probabilities during a flood event. The reliability of a dike section is defined by fragility curves - a summary of the dike strength conditional to the water level. The reliability information enhances the emergency management and inspections of embankments. Ensemble forecasting. The second study-case shows the setup of a flood impact forecasting system in Dumfries, Scotland. The existing forecasting system is extended with a 2D flood spreading model in combination with the Delft-FIAT impact model. Ensemble forecasts are used to make use of the uncertainty in the precipitation forecasts, which is useful to quantify the certainty of a forecasted flood event. From global

Flood mapping with multitemporal MODIS data

Science.gov (United States)

Son, Nguyen-Thanh; Chen, Chi-Farn; Chen, Cheng-Ru

2014-05-01

Flood is one of the most devastating and frequent disasters resulting in loss of human life and serve damage to infrastructure and agricultural production. Flood is phenomenal in the Mekong River Delta (MRD), Vietnam. It annually lasts from July to November. Information on spatiotemporal flood dynamics is thus important for planners to devise successful strategies for flood monitoring and mitigation of its negative effects. The main objective of this study is to develop an approach for weekly mapping flood dynamics with the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer data in MRD using the water fraction model (WFM). The data processed for 2009 comprises three main steps: (1) data pre-processing to construct smooth time series of the difference in the values (DVLE) between land surface water index (LSWI) and enhanced vegetation index (EVI) using the empirical mode decomposition (EMD), (2) flood derivation using WFM, and (3) accuracy assessment. The mapping results were compared with the ground reference data, which were constructed from Envisat Advanced Synthetic Aperture Radar (ASAR) data. As several error sources, including mixed-pixel problems and low-resolution bias between the mapping results and ground reference data, could lower the level of classification accuracy, the comparisons indicated satisfactory results with the overall accuracy of 80.5% and Kappa coefficient of 0.61, respectively. These results were reaffirmed by a close correlation between the MODIS-derived flood area and that of the ground reference map at the provincial level, with the correlation coefficients (R2) of 0.93. Considering the importance of remote sensing for monitoring floods and mitigating the damage caused by floods to crops and infrastructure, this study eventually leads to the realization of the value of using time-series MODIS DVLE data for weekly flood monitoring in MRD with the aid of EMD and WFM. Such an approach that could provide quantitative information on

Internationally coordinated multi-mission planning is now critical to sustain the space-based rainfall observations needed for managing floods globally

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Reed, Patrick M; Herman, Jonathan D; Chaney, Nathaniel W; Wood, Eric F; Ferringer, Matthew P

2015-01-01

At present 4 of 10 dedicated rainfall observing satellite systems have exceeded their design life, some by more than a decade. Here, we show operational implications for flood management of a ‘collapse’ of space-based rainfall observing infrastructure as well as the high-value opportunities for a globally coordinated portfolio of satellite missions and data services. Results show that the current portfolio of rainfall missions fails to meet operational data needs for flood management, even when assuming a perfectly coordinated data product from all current rainfall-focused missions (i.e., the full portfolio). In the full portfolio, satellite-based rainfall data deficits vary across the globe and may preclude climate adaptation in locations vulnerable to increasing flood risks. Moreover, removing satellites that are currently beyond their design life (i.e., the reduced portfolio) dramatically increases data deficits globally and could cause entire high intensity flood events to be unobserved. Recovery from the reduced portfolio is possible with internationally coordinated replenishment of as few as 2 of the 4 satellite systems beyond their design life, yielding rainfall data coverages that outperform the current full portfolio (i.e., an optimized portfolio of eight satellites can outperform ten satellites). This work demonstrates the potential for internationally coordinated satellite replenishment and data services to substantially enhance the cost-effectiveness, sustainability and operational value of space-based rainfall observations in managing evolving flood risks. (letter)

Flood risk and adaptation strategies under climate change and urban expansion: A probabilistic analysis using global data

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Muis, S.; Güneralp, B.; Jongman, B.; Aerts, J.C.J.H.; Ward, P.J.

2015-01-01

An accurate understanding of flood risk and its drivers is crucial for effective risk management. Detailed risk projections, including uncertainties, are however rarely available, particularly in developing countries. This paper presents a method that integrates recent advances in global-scale

New mechanism under International Flood Initiative toward robustness for flood management in the Asia Pacific region

Science.gov (United States)

Murase, M.; Yoshitani, J.; Takeuchi, K.; Koike, T.

2015-12-01

Climate change is likely to result in increases in the frequency or intensity of extreme weather events. It is imperative that a good understanding is developed of how climate change affects the events that are reflected in hydrological extremes such as floods and how practitioners in water resources management deal with them. Since there is still major uncertainty as to how the impact of climate change affect actual water resources management, it is important to build robustness into management schemes and communities. Flood management under such variety of uncertainty favors the flexible and adaptive implementation both in top-down and bottom-up approaches. The former uses projections of global or spatially downscaled models to drive resource models and project resource impacts. The latter utilizes policy or planning tools to identify what changes in climate would be most threatening to their long-range operations. Especially for the bottom-up approaches, it is essential to identify the gap between what should be done and what has not been achieved for disaster risks. Indicators or index are appropriate tools to measure such gaps, but they are still in progress to cover the whole world. The International Flood Initiative (IFI), initiated in January 2005 by UNESCO and WMO in close cooperation with UNU and ISDR, IAHS and IAHR, has promoted an integrated approach to flood management to take advantage of floods and use of flood plains while reducing the social, environmental and economic risks. Its secretariat is located in ICHARM. The initiative objective is to support national platforms to practice evidence-based disaster risk reduction through mobilizing scientific and research networks at national, regional and international levels. The initiative is now preparing for a new mechanism to facilitate the integrated approach for flood management on the ground regionally in the Asia Pacific (IFI-AP) through monitoring, assessment and capacity building.

Projections of future floods and hydrological droughts in Europe under a +2°C global warming

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Roudier, Philippe; Andersson, Jafet C.M.; Donnelly, Chantal; Feyen, Luc; Greuell, Wouter; Ludwig, Fulco

2016-01-01

We present an assessment of the impacts of a +2°C global warming on extreme floods and hydrological droughts (1 in 10 and 1 in 100 year events) in Europe using eleven bias-corrected climate model simulations from CORDEX Europe and three hydrological models. The results show quite contrasted results

Simulating a 40-year flood event climatology of Australia with a view to ocean-land teleconnections

Science.gov (United States)

Schumann, Guy J.-P.; Andreadis, Konstantinos; Stampoulis, Dimitrios; Bates, Paul

2015-04-01

We develop, for the first time, a proof-of-concept version for a high-resolution global flood inundation model to generate a flood inundation climatology of the past 40 years (1973-2012) for the entire Australian continent at a native 1 km resolution. The objectives of our study includes (1) deriving an inundation climatology for a continent (Australia) as a demonstrator case to understand the requirements for expanding globally; (2) developing a test bed to assess the potential and value of current and future satellite missions (GRACE, SMAP, ICESat-2, AMSR-2, Sentinels and SWOT) in flood monitoring; and (3) answering science questions such as the linking of inundation to ocean circulation teleconnections. We employ the LISFLOOD-FP hydrodynamic model to generate a flood inundation climatology. The model will be built from freely available SRTM-derived data (channel widths, bank heights and floodplain topography corrected for vegetation canopy using ICESat canopy heights). Lakes and reservoirs are represented and channel hydraulics are resolved using actual channel data with bathymetry inferred from hydraulic geometry. Simulations are run with gauged flows and floodplain inundation climatology are compared to observations from GRACE, flood maps from Landsat, SAR, and MODIS. Simulations have been completed for the entire Australian continent. Additionally, changes in flood inundation have been correlated with indices related to global ocean circulation, such as the El Niño Southern Oscillation index. We will produce data layers on flood event climatology and other derived (default) products from the proposed model including channel and floodplain depths, flow direction, velocity vectors, floodplain water volume, shoreline extent and flooded area. These data layers will be in the form of simple vector and raster formats. Since outputs will be large in size we propose to upload them onto Google Earth under the GEE API license.

Geo-social media as a proxy for hydrometeorological data for streamflow estimation and to improve flood monitoring

Science.gov (United States)

Restrepo-Estrada, Camilo; de Andrade, Sidgley Camargo; Abe, Narumi; Fava, Maria Clara; Mendiondo, Eduardo Mario; de Albuquerque, João Porto

2018-02-01

Floods are one of the most devastating types of worldwide disasters in terms of human, economic, and social losses. If authoritative data is scarce, or unavailable for some periods, other sources of information are required to improve streamflow estimation and early flood warnings. Georeferenced social media messages are increasingly being regarded as an alternative source of information for coping with flood risks. However, existing studies have mostly concentrated on the links between geo-social media activity and flooded areas. Thus, there is still a gap in research with regard to the use of social media as a proxy for rainfall-runoff estimations and flood forecasting. To address this, we propose using a transformation function that creates a proxy variable for rainfall by analysing geo-social media messages and rainfall measurements from authoritative sources, which are later incorporated within a hydrological model for streamflow estimation. We found that the combined use of official rainfall values with the social media proxy variable as input for the Probability Distributed Model (PDM), improved streamflow simulations for flood monitoring. The combination of authoritative sources and transformed geo-social media data during flood events achieved a 71% degree of accuracy and a 29% underestimation rate in a comparison made with real streamflow measurements. This is a significant improvement on the respective values of 39% and 58%, achieved when only authoritative data were used for the modelling. This result is clear evidence of the potential use of derived geo-social media data as a proxy for environmental variables for improving flood early-warning systems.

Effects of Flood Control Strategies on Flood Resilience Under Sociohydrological Disturbances

Science.gov (United States)

Sung, Kyungmin; Jeong, Hanseok; Sangwan, Nikhil; Yu, David J.

2018-04-01

A community capacity to cope with flood hazards, or community flood resilience, emerges from the interplay of hydrological and social processes. This interplay can be significantly influenced by the flood control strategy adopted by a society, i.e., how a society sets its desired flood protection level and strives to achieve this goal. And this interplay can be further complicated by rising land-sea level differences, seasonal water level fluctuations, and economic change. But not much research has been done on how various forms of flood control strategies affect human-flood interactions under these disturbances and therefore flood resilience in the long run. The current study is an effort to address these issues by developing a conceptual model of human-flood interaction mediated by flood control strategies. Our model extends the existing model of Yu et al. (2017), who investigated the flood resilience of a community-based flood protection system in coastal Bangladesh. The major extensions made in this study are inclusions of various forms of flood control strategies (both adaptive and nonadaptive ones), the challenge of rising land-sea level differences, and various high tide level scenarios generated from modifying the statistical variances and averages. Our results show that adaptive forms of flood control strategies tend to outperform nonadaptive ones for maintaining the model community's flood protection system. Adaptive strategies that dynamically adjust target flood protection levels through close monitoring of flood damages and social memories of flood risk can help the model community deal with various disturbances.

SERVIR-Africa: Developing an Integrated Platform for Floods Disaster Management in Africa

Science.gov (United States)

Macharia, Daniel; Korme, Tesfaye; Policelli, Fritz; Irwin, Dan; Adler, Bob; Hong, Yang

2010-01-01

SERVIR-Africa is an ambitious regional visualization and monitoring system that integrates remotely sensed data with predictive models and field-based data to monitor ecological processes and respond to natural disasters. It aims addressing societal benefits including floods and turning data into actionable information for decision-makers. Floods are exogenous disasters that affect many parts of Africa, probably second only to drought in terms of social-economic losses. This paper looks at SERVIR-Africa's approach to floods disaster management through establishment of an integrated platform, floods prediction models, post-event flood mapping and monitoring as well as flood maps dissemination in support of flood disaster management.

Satellites, tweets, forecasts: the future of flood disaster management?

Science.gov (United States)

Dottori, Francesco; Kalas, Milan; Lorini, Valerio; Wania, Annett; Pappenberger, Florian; Salamon, Peter; Ramos, Maria Helena; Cloke, Hannah; Castillo, Carlos

2017-04-01

Floods have devastating effects on lives and livelihoods around the world. Structural flood defence measures such as dikes and dams can help protect people. However, it is the emerging science and technologies for flood disaster management and preparedness, such as increasingly accurate flood forecasting systems, high-resolution satellite monitoring, rapid risk mapping, and the unique strength of social media information and crowdsourcing, that are most promising for reducing the impacts of flooding. Here, we describe an innovative framework which integrates in real-time two components of the Copernicus Emergency mapping services, namely the European Flood Awareness System and the satellite-based Rapid Mapping, with new procedures for rapid risk assessment and social media and news monitoring. The integrated framework enables improved flood impact forecast, thanks to the real-time integration of forecasting and monitoring components, and increases the timeliness and efficiency of satellite mapping, with the aim of capturing flood peaks and following the evolution of flooding processes. Thanks to the proposed framework, emergency responders will have access to a broad range of timely and accurate information for more effective and robust planning, decision-making, and resource allocation.

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International Development Research Centre (IDRC) Digital Library (Canada)

Researchers will follow the Global Entrepreneurship Monitor (GEM) program ... The study will provide detailed information on entrepreneurship in Canada that is ... sector, public sector, and civil society organizations on development issues.

Recent advances in flood forecasting and flood risk assessment

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

G. Arduino

2005-01-01

Full Text Available Recent large floods in Europe have led to increased interest in research and development of flood forecasting systems. Some of these events have been provoked by some of the wettest rainfall periods on record which has led to speculation that such extremes are attributable in some measure to anthropogenic global warming and represent the beginning of a period of higher flood frequency. Whilst current trends in extreme event statistics will be difficult to discern, conclusively, there has been a substantial increase in the frequency of high floods in the 20th century for basins greater than 2x105 km2. There is also increasing that anthropogenic forcing of climate change may lead to an increased probability of extreme precipitation and, hence, of flooding. There is, therefore, major emphasis on the improvement of operational flood forecasting systems in Europe, with significant European Community spending on research and development on prototype forecasting systems and flood risk management projects. This Special Issue synthesises the most relevant scientific and technological results presented at the International Conference on Flood Forecasting in Europe held in Rotterdam from 3-5 March 2003. During that meeting 150 scientists, forecasters and stakeholders from four continents assembled to present their work and current operational best practice and to discuss future directions of scientific and technological efforts in flood prediction and prevention. The papers presented at the conference fall into seven themes, as follows.

Discover Floods Educators Guide

Science.gov (United States)

Project WET Foundation, 2009

2009-01-01

Now available as a Download! This valuable resource helps educators teach students about both the risks and benefits of flooding through a series of engaging, hands-on activities. Acknowledging the different roles that floods play in both natural and urban communities, the book helps young people gain a global understanding of this common--and…

The economic costs of natural disasters globally from 1900-2015: historical and normalised floods, storms, earthquakes, volcanoes, bushfires, drought and other disasters

Science.gov (United States)

Daniell, James; Wenzel, Friedemann; Schaefer, Andreas

2016-04-01

For the first time, a breakdown of natural disaster losses from 1900-2015 based on over 30,000 event economic losses globally is given based on increased analysis within the CATDAT Damaging Natural Disaster databases. Using country-CPI and GDP deflator adjustments, over 7 trillion (2015-adjusted) in losses have occurred; over 40% due to flood/rainfall, 26% due to earthquake, 19% due to storm effects, 12% due to drought, 2% due to wildfire and under 1% due to volcano. Using construction cost indices, higher percentages of flood losses are seen. Depending on how the adjustment of dollars are made to 2015 terms (CPI vs. construction cost indices), between 6.5 and 14.0 trillion USD (2015-adjusted) of natural disaster losses have been seen from 1900-2015 globally. Significant reductions in economic losses have been seen in China and Japan from 1950 onwards. An AAL of around 200 billion in the last 16 years has been seen equating to around 0.25% of Global GDP or around 0.1% of Net Capital Stock per year. Normalised losses have also been calculated to examine the trends in vulnerability through time for economic losses. The normalisation methodology globally using the exposure databases within CATDAT that were undertaken previously in papers for the earthquake and volcano databases, are used for this study. The original event year losses are adjusted directly by capital stock change, very high losses are observed with respect to floods over time (however with improved flood control structures). This shows clear trends in the improvement of building stock towards natural disasters and a decreasing trend in most perils for most countries.

Cyber Surveillance for Flood Disasters

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Shi-Wei Lo

2015-01-01

Full Text Available Regional heavy rainfall is usually caused by the influence of extreme weather conditions. Instant heavy rainfall often results in the flooding of rivers and the neighboring low-lying areas, which is responsible for a large number of casualties and considerable property loss. The existing precipitation forecast systems mostly focus on the analysis and forecast of large-scale areas but do not provide precise instant automatic monitoring and alert feedback for individual river areas and sections. Therefore, in this paper, we propose an easy method to automatically monitor the flood object of a specific area, based on the currently widely used remote cyber surveillance systems and image processing methods, in order to obtain instant flooding and waterlogging event feedback. The intrusion detection mode of these surveillance systems is used in this study, wherein a flood is considered a possible invasion object. Through the detection and verification of flood objects, automatic flood risk-level monitoring of specific individual river segments, as well as the automatic urban inundation detection, has become possible. The proposed method can better meet the practical needs of disaster prevention than the method of large-area forecasting. It also has several other advantages, such as flexibility in location selection, no requirement of a standard water-level ruler, and a relatively large field of view, when compared with the traditional water-level measurements using video screens. The results can offer prompt reference for appropriate disaster warning actions in small areas, making them more accurate and effective.

Geographic Information and Remotely Sensed Data For The Assessment and Monitoring of The Flood Hazard In Romania

Science.gov (United States)

Predescu, C.; Stancalie, G.; Savin, E.

Floodings represent an important risk in many areas around the globe and especially in Romania. In the latest years floodings occurred quite frequently in Romania, some of which isolated, others were affecting wide areas of the countrySs territory. The paper assumes a modern approach for the flooding risk indices, associated to the physic- geographical, morpho-hydrographical and vulnerability characteristics of a region, in view to establish a methodology which should further allow to determine the flooding risk, using representatives indices at a scale compatible with a synthetic representa- tion of the territory. There are stressed the facilities supplied by the Geographic Infor- mation System (GIS) and the remotely sensed data to manage flooding during their characteristic phases: before, during and after flooding. Accent is laid on the pre and post-crisis phases. An important research topic was the study of the parameters that can be extracted from satellite images in view of organising a hierarchy of the geo- graphical space versus the flooding risk. Information obtained from satellite images proved to be useful for the determination of certain parameters necessary to monitor flooding: hydrographic network, water accumulation, size of floodable surface, land impermeability degree, water absorption capacity over the basin surface, resilience to in-soil water infiltration. The study encompassed both the risk degree levels related with various parameters, which condition and determine floodings, and the one, which takes into consideration the human presence in the sensitive areas. It was planned to design and build a database, which will help to elaborate the flooding hydrological risk indices. The application was developed for the Arges hydrographic basin in Romania, a critical area, keeping in mind that it withholds many localities, including the capital and also important economic centres. The database allows obtaining synthetic repre- sentations of the

Building capacity in biodiversity monitoring at the global scale

Science.gov (United States)

Schmeller, Dirk S.; Bohm, Monika; Arvanitidis, Christos; Barber-Meyer, Shannon; Brummitt, Neil; Chandler, Mark; Chatzinikolaou, Eva; Costello, Mark J.; Ding, Hui; García-Moreno, Jaime; Gill, Michael J.; Haase, Peter; Jones, Miranda; Juillard, Romain; Magnusson, William E.; Martin, Corinne S.; McGeoch, Melodie A.; Mihoub, Jean-Baptiste; Pettorelli, Nathalie; Proença, Vânia; Peng, Cui; Regan, Eugenie; Schmiedel, Ute; Simsika, John P.; Weatherdon, Lauren; Waterman, Carly; Xu, Haigen; Belnap, Jayne

2017-01-01

Human-driven global change is causing ongoing declines in biodiversity worldwide. In order to address these declines, decision-makers need accurate assessments of the status of and pressures on biodiversity. However, these are heavily constrained by incomplete and uneven spatial, temporal and taxonomic coverage. For instance, data from regions such as Europe and North America are currently used overwhelmingly for large-scale biodiversity assessments due to lesser availability of suitable data from other, more biodiversity-rich, regions. These data-poor regions are often those experiencing the strongest threats to biodiversity, however. There is therefore an urgent need to fill the existing gaps in global biodiversity monitoring. Here, we review current knowledge on best practice in capacity building for biodiversity monitoring and provide an overview of existing means to improve biodiversity data collection considering the different types of biodiversity monitoring data. Our review comprises insights from work in Africa, South America, Polar Regions and Europe; in government-funded, volunteer and citizen-based monitoring in terrestrial, freshwater and marine ecosystems. The key steps to effectively building capacity in biodiversity monitoring are: identifying monitoring questions and aims; identifying the key components, functions, and processes to monitor; identifying the most suitable monitoring methods for these elements, carrying out monitoring activities; managing the resultant data; and interpreting monitoring data. Additionally, biodiversity monitoring should use multiple approaches including extensive and intensive monitoring through volunteers and professional scientists but also harnessing new technologies. Finally, we call on the scientific community to share biodiversity monitoring data, knowledge and tools to ensure the accessibility, interoperability, and reporting of biodiversity data at a global scale.

Floods and human health: a systematic review.

Science.gov (United States)

Alderman, Katarzyna; Turner, Lyle R; Tong, Shilu

2012-10-15

Floods are the most common type of disaster globally, responsible for almost 53,000 deaths in the last decade alone (23:1 low- versus high-income countries). This review assessed recent epidemiological evidence on the impacts of floods on human health. Published articles (2004-2011) on the quantitative relationship between floods and health were systematically reviewed. 35 relevant epidemiological studies were identified. Health outcomes were categorized into short- and long-term and were found to depend on the flood characteristics and people's vulnerability. It was found that long-term health effects are currently not well understood. Mortality rates were found to increase by up to 50% in the first year post-flood. After floods, it was found there is an increased risk of disease outbreaks such as hepatitis E, gastrointestinal disease and leptospirosis, particularly in areas with poor hygiene and displaced populations. Psychological distress in survivors (prevalence 8.6% to 53% two years post-flood) can also exacerbate their physical illness. There is a need for effective policies to reduce and prevent flood-related morbidity and mortality. Such steps are contingent upon the improved understanding of potential health impacts of floods. Global trends in urbanization, burden of disease, malnutrition and maternal and child health must be better reflected in flood preparedness and mitigation programs. Crown Copyright © 2012. Published by Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

A Monitoring System for Mountain Flood Geological Hazard Based on Internet of Things

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

HUANGFU Zhong-Min

2014-11-01

Full Text Available In order to avoid the shortcomings of the poor real-time data collection and the insufficient information coverage in the traditional geological hazard disaster monitoring measures, this paper designs a monitoring system for mountain flood geological hazard based on the Internet of Things, in which the overall architecture of the system is built, and the design of hardware combined with its driver program for the remote terminal system is presented in detail. This system uses STC12C5A60S2 MCU as the core controller to handle such data as rainfall, groundwater level and displacement of the mountain which are collected by the sensors, and employs GPS module to get the location information. Then the data processed is encapsulated into TCP/IP data packs by GPRS module. Through GPRS accessing the Internet, these data packs are transmitted to the monitoring center. The experimental results show that the system has good reliability, stability and real-time in communication.

Exploring the Role of Social Media and Individual Behaviors in Flood Evacuation Processes: An Agent-Based Modeling Approach

Science.gov (United States)

Du, Erhu; Cai, Ximing; Sun, Zhiyong; Minsker, Barbara

2017-11-01

Flood warnings from various information sources are important for individuals to make evacuation decisions during a flood event. In this study, we develop a general opinion dynamics model to simulate how individuals update their flood hazard awareness when exposed to multiple information sources, including global broadcast, social media, and observations of neighbors' actions. The opinion dynamics model is coupled with a traffic model to simulate the evacuation processes of a residential community with a given transportation network. Through various scenarios, we investigate how social media affect the opinion dynamics and evacuation processes. We find that stronger social media can make evacuation processes more sensitive to the change of global broadcast and neighbor observations, and thus, impose larger uncertainty on evacuation rates (i.e., a large range of evacuation rates corresponding to sources of information). For instance, evacuation rates are lower when social media become more influential and individuals have less trust in global broadcast. Stubborn individuals can significantly affect the opinion dynamics and reduce evacuation rates. In addition, evacuation rates respond to the percentage of stubborn agents in a nonlinear manner, i.e., above a threshold, the impact of stubborn agents will be intensified by stronger social media. These results highlight the role of social media in flood evacuation processes and the need to monitor social media so that misinformation can be corrected in a timely manner. The joint impacts of social media, quality of flood warnings, and transportation capacity on evacuation rates are also discussed.

Flooding Model as the Analysis of the Sea Level Increase as a Result of Global Warming in Coastal Area in Lampung

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Agung Kurniawan

2017-08-01

Full Text Available The melting of ice layers, as a direct impact on global warming, is indicated from a lesser thickness of ice layers is specifically causing an increase on the sea level. Lampung, as a province that has an ecosistem of regional coast, can be estimated to submerge. Flood modelling can be done to know the estimated flood range. The model of the flooded region is taken from Shuttle Radar Topography Mission(SRTM data, which is nomalized to get the visualisation of Digital Elevation Model (DEM. The purpose of this research is to know the estimated region of provincial coast of Lampung that is going to be flooded because of the raising of sea surface. This research uses flood inundation technique that uses one of the GIS mapping software. The result can be used as consideration to achieve policy in the building of regional coast. The regions that are flooded based on the scenario of the raising of two and three meter surface sea level are East Lampung Regency, West Lampung Regency, South Lampung Regency, Tanggamus Regency, Pesawaran Regency, and Bandar Lampung.

Development of Integrated Flood Analysis System for Improving Flood Mitigation Capabilities in Korea

Science.gov (United States)

Moon, Young-Il; Kim, Jong-suk

2016-04-01

Recently, the needs of people are growing for a more safety life and secure homeland from unexpected natural disasters. Flood damages have been recorded every year and those damages are greater than the annual average of 2 trillion won since 2000 in Korea. It has been increased in casualties and property damages due to flooding caused by hydrometeorlogical extremes according to climate change. Although the importance of flooding situation is emerging rapidly, studies related to development of integrated management system for reducing floods are insufficient in Korea. In addition, it is difficult to effectively reduce floods without developing integrated operation system taking into account of sewage pipe network configuration with the river level. Since the floods result in increasing damages to infrastructure, as well as life and property, structural and non-structural measures should be urgently established in order to effectively reduce the flood. Therefore, in this study, we developed an integrated flood analysis system that systematized technology to quantify flood risk and flood forecasting for supporting synthetic decision-making through real-time monitoring and prediction on flash rain or short-term rainfall by using radar and satellite information in Korea. Keywords: Flooding, Integrated flood analysis system, Rainfall forecasting, Korea Acknowledgments This work was carried out with the support of "Cooperative Research Program for Agriculture Science & Technology Development (Project No. PJ011686022015)" Rural Development Administration, Republic of Korea

Global Entrepreneurship Monitor 2009 Executive Report.

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Bosma, N.S.; Levie, J.

2010-01-01

The Global Entrepreneurship Monitor (GEM) is the world’s leading research consortium dedicated to understanding the relationship between entrepreneurship and national economic development. For the past ten years GEM reports have been the only source of comparable data across a large variety of

A Prototype Flood Early Warning SensorWeb System for Namibia

Science.gov (United States)

Sohlberg, R. A.; Mandl, D.; Frye, S. W.; Cappelaere, P. G.; Szarzynski, J.; Policelli, F.; van Langenhove, G.

2010-12-01

During the past two years, there have been extensive floods in the country of Namibia, Africa which have affected up to a quarter of the population. Via a collaboration between a group funded by the Earth Science Technology Office (ESTO) at NASA that has been performing various SensorWeb prototyping activities for disasters, the Department of Hydrology in Namibia and the United Nations Space-based Information for Disaster and Emergency Response (UN-SPIDER) , experiments were conducted on how to apply various satellite resources integrated into a SensorWeb architecture along with in-situ sensors such as river gauges and rain gauges into a flood early warning system. The SensorWeb includes a global flood model and a higher resolution basin specific flood model. Furthermore, flood extent and status is monitored by optical and radar types of satellites and integrated via some automation. We have taken a practical approach to find out how to create a working system by selectively using the components that provide good results. The vision for the future is to combine this with the country side dwelling unit data base to create risk maps that provide specific warnings to houses within high risk areas based on near term predictions. This presentation will show some of the highlights of the effort thus far plus our future plans.

Operational satellites and the global monitoring of snow and ice

Science.gov (United States)

Walsh, John E.

1991-01-01

The altitudinal dependence of the global warming projected by global climate models is at least partially attributable to the albedo-temperature feedback involving snow and ice, which must be regarded as key variables in the monitoring for global change. Statistical analyses of data from IR and microwave sensors monitoring the areal coverage and extent of sea ice have led to mixed conclusions about recent trends of hemisphere sea ice coverage. Seasonal snow cover has been mapped for over 20 years by NOAA/NESDIS on the basis of imagery from a variety of satellite sensors. Multichannel passive microwave data show some promise for the routine monitoring of snow depth over unforested land areas.

Coastal flood implications of 1.5°C, 2°C and 2.5°C global mean temperature stabilization targets for small island nations

Science.gov (United States)

Rasmussen, D.; Buchanan, M. K.; Kopp, R. E.; Oppenheimer, M.

2017-12-01

Sea-level rise (SLR) is magnifying the frequency and severity of flooding in coastal regions. The rate and amount of global-mean SLR is a function of the trajectory of the global mean surface temperature (GMST). Therefore, temperature stabilization targets (e.g., 1.5°C or 2°C, as from the Paris Agreement) have important implications for regulating coastal flood risk. Quantifying the differences in the impact from SLR between these and other GMST stabilization targets is necessary for assessing the benefits and harms of mitigation goals. Low-lying small island nations are particularly vulnerable to inundation and coastal flooding from SLR because building protective and resilient infrastructure may not be physically or economically feasible. For small island nations, keeping GMST below a specified threshold may be the only option for maintaining habitability. Here, we assess differences in the return levels of coastal floods for small island nations between 1.5°C, 2.0°C, and 2.5°C GMST stabilization. We employ probabilistic, localized SLR projections and long-term hourly tide gauge records to construct estimates of local flood risk. We then estimate the number of small island nations' inhabitants at risk for permanent inundation under different GMST stabilization targets.

Integrating High-Resolution Taskable Imagery into a Sensorweb for Automatic Space-Based Monitoring of Flooding in Thailand

Science.gov (United States)

Chien, Steve; Mclaren, David; Doubleday, Joshua; Tran, Daniel; Tanpipat, Veerachai; Chitradon, Royol; Boonya-aroonnet, Surajate; Thanapakpawin, Porranee; Mandl, Daniel

2012-01-01

Several space-based assets (Terra, Aqua, Earth Observing One) have been integrated into a sensorweb to monitor flooding in Thailand. In this approach, the Moderate Imaging Spectrometer (MODIS) data from Terra and Aqua is used to perform broad-scale monitoring to track flooding at the regional level (250m/pixel) and EO-1 is autonomously tasked in response to alerts to acquire higher resolution (30m/pixel) Advanced Land Imager (ALI) data. This data is then automatically processed to derive products such as surface water extent and volumetric water estimates. These products are then automatically pushed to organizations in Thailand for use in damage estimation, relief efforts, and damage mitigation. More recently, this sensorweb structure has been used to request imagery, access imagery, and process high-resolution (several m to 30m), targetable asset imagery from commercial assets including Worldview-2, Ikonos, Radarsat-2, Landsat-7, and Geo-Eye-1. We describe the overall sensorweb framework as well as new workflows and products made possible via these extensions.

Linking Science of Flood Forecasts to Humanitarian Actions for Improved Preparedness and Effective Response

Science.gov (United States)

Uprety, M.; Dugar, S.; Gautam, D.; Kanel, D.; Kshetri, M.; Kharbuja, R. G.; Acharya, S. H.

2017-12-01

Advances in flood forecasting have provided opportunities for humanitarian responders to employ a range of preparedness activities at different forecast time horizons. Yet, the science of prediction is less understood and realized across the humanitarian landscape, and often preparedness plans are based upon average level of flood risk. Working under the remit of Forecast Based Financing (FbF), we present a pilot from Nepal on how available flood and weather forecast products are informing specific pre-emptive actions in the local preparedness and response plans, thereby supporting government stakeholders and humanitarian agencies to take early actions before an impending flood event. In Nepal, forecasting capabilities are limited but in a state of positive flux. Whilst local flood forecasts based upon rainfall-runoff models are yet to be operationalized, streamflow predictions from Global Flood Awareness System (GLoFAS) can be utilized to plan and implement preparedness activities several days in advance. Likewise, 3-day rainfall forecasts from Nepal Department of Hydrology and Meteorology (DHM) can further inform specific set of early actions for potential flash floods due to heavy precipitation. Existing community based early warning systems in the major river basins of Nepal are utilizing real time monitoring of water levels and rainfall together with localised probabilistic flood forecasts which has increased warning lead time from 2-3 hours to 7-8 hours. Based on these available forecast products, thresholds and trigger levels have been determined for different flood scenarios. Matching these trigger levels and assigning responsibilities to relevant actors for early actions, a set of standard operating procedures (SOPs) are being developed, broadly covering general preparedness activities and science informed anticipatory actions for different forecast lead times followed by the immediate response activities. These SOPs are currently being rolled out and

A seamless global hydrological monitoring and forecasting system for water resources assessment and hydrological hazard early warning

Science.gov (United States)

Sheffield, Justin; He, Xiaogang; Wood, Eric; Pan, Ming; Wanders, Niko; Zhan, Wang; Peng, Liqing

2017-04-01

Sustainable management of water resources and mitigation of the impacts of hydrological hazards are becoming ever more important at large scales because of inter-basin, inter-country and inter-continental connections in water dependent sectors. These include water resources management, food production, and energy production, whose needs must be weighed against the water needs of ecosystems and preservation of water resources for future generations. The strains on these connections are likely to increase with climate change and increasing demand from burgeoning populations and rapid development, with potential for conflict over water. At the same time, network connections may provide opportunities to alleviate pressures on water availability through more efficient use of resources such as trade in water dependent goods. A key constraint on understanding, monitoring and identifying solutions to increasing competition for water resources and hazard risk is the availability of hydrological data for monitoring and forecasting water resources and hazards. We present a global online system that provides continuous and consistent water products across time scales, from the historic instrumental period, to real-time monitoring, short-term and seasonal forecasts, and climate change projections. The system is intended to provide data and tools for analysis of historic hydrological variability and trends, water resources assessment, monitoring of evolving hazards and forecasts for early warning, and climate change scale projections of changes in water availability and extreme events. The system is particular useful for scientists and stakeholders interested in regions with less available in-situ data, and where forecasts have the potential to help decision making. The system is built on a database of high-resolution climate data from 1950 to present that merges available observational records with bias-corrected reanalysis and satellite data, which then drives a coupled land

The Role of Civil Society Organizations in Monitoring the Global AIDS Response.

Science.gov (United States)

Smith, Julia; Mallouris, Christoforos; Lee, Kelley; Alfvén, Tobias

2017-07-01

Civil society organizations (CSOs) are recognized as playing an exceptional role in the global AIDS response. However, there is little detailed research to date on how they contribute to specific governance functions. This article uses Haas' framework on global governance functions to map CSO's participation in the monitoring of global commitments to the AIDS response by institutions and states. Drawing on key informant interviews and primary documents, it focuses specifically on CSO participation in Global AIDS Response Progress Reporting and in Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria processes. It argues that the AIDS response is unique within global health governance, in that CSOs fulfill both formal and informal monitoring functions, and considers the strengths and weaknesses of these contributions. It concludes that future global health governance arrangements should include provisions and resources for monitoring by CSOs because their participation creates more inclusive global health governance and contributes to strengthening commitments to human rights.

Flood early warning system : Design, implementation and computational modules

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Krzhizhanovskaya, V.V.; Shirshov, G.S.; Melnikova, N.B.; Belleman, R.G.; Rusadi, F.I.; Broekhuijsen, B.J.; Gouldby, B.P.; Lhomme, J.; Balis, B.; Bubak, M.; Pyayt, A.L.; Mokhov, I.I.; Ozhigin, A.V.; Lang, B.; Meijer, R.J.

2011-01-01

We present a prototype of the flood early warning system (EWS) developed within the UrbanFlood FP7 project. The system monitors sensor networks installed in flood defenses (dikes, dams, embankments, etc.), detects sensor signal abnormalities, calculates dike failure probability, and simulates

Dissemination of satellite-based river discharge and flood data

Science.gov (United States)

Kettner, A. J.; Brakenridge, G. R.; van Praag, E.; de Groeve, T.; Slayback, D. A.; Cohen, S.

2014-12-01

In collaboration with NASA Goddard Spaceflight Center and the European Commission Joint Research Centre, the Dartmouth Flood Observatory (DFO) daily measures and distributes: 1) river discharges, and 2) near real-time flood extents with a global coverage. Satellite-based passive microwave sensors and hydrological modeling are utilized to establish 'remote-sensing based discharge stations', and observed time series cover 1998 to the present. The advantages over in-situ gauged discharges are: a) easy access to remote or due to political reasons isolated locations, b) relatively low maintenance costs to maintain a continuous observational record, and c) the capability to obtain measurements during floods, hazardous conditions that often impair or destroy in-situ stations. Two MODIS instruments aboard the NASA Terra and Aqua satellites provide global flood extent coverage at a spatial resolution of 250m. Cloud cover hampers flood extent detection; therefore we ingest 6 images (the Terra and Aqua images of each day, for three days), in combination with a cloud shadow filter, to provide daily global flood extent updates. The Flood Observatory has always made it a high priority to visualize and share its data and products through its website. Recent collaborative efforts with e.g. GeoSUR have enhanced accessibility of DFO data. A web map service has been implemented to automatically disseminate geo-referenced flood extent products into client-side GIS software. For example, for Latin America and the Caribbean region, the GeoSUR portal now displays current flood extent maps, which can be integrated and visualized with other relevant geographical data. Furthermore, the flood state of satellite-observed river discharge sites are displayed through the portal as well. Additional efforts include implementing Open Geospatial Consortium (OGC) standards to incorporate Water Markup Language (WaterML) data exchange mechanisms to further facilitate the distribution of the satellite

An agent-based modelling framework to explore the role of social media and stubborn people on evacuation rates during flooding events

Science.gov (United States)

Du, E.; Cai, X.; Minsker, B. S.; Sun, Z.

2017-12-01

Flood warnings from various information sources are important for individuals to make evacuation decisions during a flood event. In this study, we develop a general opinion dynamics model to simulate how individuals update their flood hazard awareness when exposed to multiple information sources, including global broadcast, social media, and observations of neighbors' actions. The opinion dynamics model is coupled with a traffic model to simulate the evacuation processes of a residential community with a given transportation network. Through various scenarios, we investigate how social media affect the opinion dynamics and evacuation processes. We find that stronger social media can make evacuation processes more sensitive to the change of global broadcast and neighbor observations, and thus, impose larger uncertainty on evacuation rates (i.e., a large range of evacuation rates corresponding to sources of information). For instance, evacuation rates are lower when social media become more influential and individuals have less trust in global broadcast. Stubborn individuals can significantly affect the opinion dynamics and reduce evacuation rates. In addition, evacuation rates respond to the percentage of stubborn agents in a non-linear manner, i.e., above a threshold, the impact of stubborn agents will be intensified by stronger social media. These results highlight the role of social media in flood evacuation processes and the need to monitor social media so that misinformation can be corrected in a timely manner. The joint impacts of social media, quality of flood warnings and transportation capacity on evacuation rates are also discussed.

Flood Monitoring using X-band Dual-polarization Radar Network

Science.gov (United States)

Chandrasekar, V.; Wang, Y.; Maki, M.; Nakane, K.

2009-09-01

A dense weather radar network is an emerging concept advanced by the Center for Collaborative Adaptive Sensing of the Atmosphere (CASA). Using multiple radars observing over a common will create different data outcomes depending on the characteristics of the radar units employed and the network topology. To define this a general framework is developed to describe the radar network space, and formulations are obtained that can be used for weather radar network characterization. Current weather radar surveillance networks are based upon conventional sensing paradigm of widely-separated, standalone sensing systems using long range radars that operate at wavelengths in 5-10 cm range. Such configuration has limited capability to observe close to the surface of the earth because of the earth's curvature but also has poorer resolution at far ranges. The dense network radar system, observes and measures weather phenomenon such as rainfall and severe weather close to the ground at higher spatial and temporal resolution compared to the current paradigm. In addition the dense network paradigm also is easily adaptable to complex terrain. Flooding is one of the most common natural hazards in the world. Especially, excessive development decreases the response time of urban watersheds and complex terrain to rainfall and increases the chance of localized flooding events over a small spatial domain. Successful monitoring of urban floods requires high spatiotemporal resolution, accurate precipitation estimation because of the rapid flood response as well as the complex hydrologic and hydraulic characteristics in an urban environment. This paper reviews various aspects in radar rainfall mapping in urban coverage using dense X-band dual-polarization radar networks. By reducing the maximum range and operating at X-band, one can ensure good azimuthal resolution with a small-size antenna and keep the radar beam closer to the ground. The networked topology helps to achieve satisfactory

A global hydrographic array for early detection of floods and droughts

Science.gov (United States)

Brakenridge, G.; Nghiem, S.; Caquard, S.

An array of over 700 20 km-long river gaging reaches, distributed world-wide, is imaged by the SeaWinds radar scatterometer aboard QuikSCAT every 2.5 days. Strongly negative HH/VV polarity ratios indicate large amounts of surface water. We set individual reach thresholds so that the transition from bankfull to overbank river flow can be identified according to changes in this ratio. Similarly, the wide-swath MODIS optical sensors provide frequent repeat coverage of the reaches at much higher spatial resolution (250 m). In this case, several reach water surface area thresholds can be identified: low flow or drought conditions, normal in-channel flow, overbank flow, and extreme flood conditions. Sustained data collection for the reaches by both sensors allows the radar response to changing surface water to be defined, and allows evaluation of the sensitivity of the MODIS data to river discharge changes. New approaches, such as ``unmixing'' analysis of mixed water/land MODIS pixels can extend detection limits to smaller rivers and streams. It is now possible for wide-area, frequent revisit terrestrial remote sensing to provide human society with early warning of both floods and droughts and by direct observation of the runoff component of the Earth's hydrologic cycle. Examples of both radar and optical approaches towards this end are at the web sites below: http://www.dartmouth.edu/˜ floods/Modisrapidresponse.html http://www.dartmouth.edu/˜ floods/sensorweb/SensorWebindex.html http://www.dartmouth.edu/˜ floods/Quikscat/Regional2/CurrentTisza.jpg} In particular, early flood detection results are obtained over an extensive region in eastern Europe including the Tisza River basin, Romania, Hungary, and adjacent nations. Flood detection maps are updated weekly at the web site. The combination of QuikSCAT and MODIS takes advantage of the large-area coverage of these sensors together with the high temporal resolution of QuikSCAT and the high spatial resolution of MODIS

Flood early warning system: sensors and internet

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Pengel, B.E.; Krzhizhanovskaya, V.V.; Melnikova, N.B.; Shirshov, G.S.; Koelewijn, A.R.; Pyayt, A.L.; Mokhov, I.I.; Chavoshian, A.; Takeuchi, K.

2013-01-01

The UrbanFlood early warning system (EWS) is designed to monitor data from very large sensornetworks in flood defences such as embankments, dikes, levees, and dams. The EWS, based on the internet, uses real-time sensor information and Artificial Intelligence (AI) to immediately calculate the

A satellite and model based flood inundation climatology of Australia

Science.gov (United States)

Schumann, G.; Andreadis, K.; Castillo, C. J.

2013-12-01

To date there is no coherent and consistent database on observed or simulated flood event inundation and magnitude at large scales (continental to global). The only compiled data set showing a consistent history of flood inundation area and extent at a near global scale is provided by the MODIS-based Dartmouth Flood Observatory. However, MODIS satellite imagery is only available from 2000 and is hampered by a number of issues associated with flood mapping using optical images (e.g. classification algorithms, cloud cover, vegetation). Here, we present for the first time a proof-of-concept study in which we employ a computationally efficient 2-D hydrodynamic model (LISFLOOD-FP) complemented with a sub-grid channel formulation to generate a complete flood inundation climatology of the past 40 years (1973-2012) for the entire Australian continent. The model was built completely from freely available SRTM-derived data, including channel widths, bank heights and floodplain topography, which was corrected for vegetation canopy height using a global ICESat canopy dataset. Channel hydraulics were resolved using actual channel data and bathymetry was estimated within the model using hydraulic geometry. On the floodplain, the model simulated the flow paths and inundation variables at a 1 km resolution. The developed model was run over a period of 40 years and a floodplain inundation climatology was generated and compared to satellite flood event observations. Our proof-of-concept study demonstrates that this type of model can reliably simulate past flood events with reasonable accuracies both in time and space. The Australian model was forced with both observed flow climatology and VIC-simulated flows in order to assess the feasibility of a model-based flood inundation climatology at the global scale.

Near Real-Time Flood Monitoring and Impact Assessment Systems. Chapter 6; [Case Study: 2011 Flooding in Southeast Asia

Science.gov (United States)

Ahamed, Aakash; Bolten, John; Doyle, C.; Fayne, Jessica

2016-01-01

Floods are the costliest natural disaster (United Nations 2004), causing approximately6.8 million deaths in the twentieth century alone (Doocy et al. 2013).Worldwide economic flood damage estimates in 2012 exceed $19 Billion USD(Munich Re 2013). Extended duration floods also pose longer term threats to food security, water, sanitation, hygiene, and community livelihoods, particularly in developing countries (Davies et al. 2014).Projections by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) suggest that precipitation extremes, rainfall intensity, storm intensity, and variability are increasing due to climate change (IPCC 2007). Increasing hydrologic uncertainty will likely lead to unprecedented extreme flood events. As such, there is a vital need to enhance and further develop traditional techniques used to rapidly assessflooding and extend analytical methods to estimate impacted population and infrastructure.

Global Aerospace Monitoring and Disaster Management

CERN Document Server

Menshikov, Valery A; Urlichich, Yuri M

2012-01-01

In this book, space systems are situated in the global processes of the 21st century’s information society and the role that space information systems could play in risk management is determined; methods of detecting and forecasting of both natural disasters and technogenic catastrophes and existing global and regional monitoring systems are described; and the IGMASS is introduced with its architecture and design concept and social and economic aspects and estimates of its creation, development, and utilization. Finally, results of the international symposium held in Limassol, Cyprus, in November 2009 in preparation of the IGMASS project’s submission to the United Nations are discussed.

Dynamics of flood water infiltration and ground water recharge in hyperarid desert.

Science.gov (United States)

Dahan, Ofer; Tatarsky, Boaz; Enzel, Yehouda; Kulls, Christoph; Seely, Mary; Benito, Gererdo

2008-01-01

A study on flood water infiltration and ground water recharge of a shallow alluvial aquifer was conducted in the hyperarid section of the Kuiseb River, Namibia. The study site was selected to represent a typical desert ephemeral river. An instrumental setup allowed, for the first time, continuous monitoring of infiltration during a flood event through the channel bed and the entire vadose zone. The monitoring system included flexible time domain reflectometry probes that were designed to measure the temporal variation in vadose zone water content and instruments to concurrently measure the levels of flood and ground water. A sequence of five individual floods was monitored during the rainy season in early summer 2006. These newly generated data served to elucidate the dynamics of flood water infiltration. Each flood initiated an infiltration event which was expressed in wetting of the vadose zone followed by a measurable rise in the water table. The data enabled a direct calculation of the infiltration fluxes by various independent methods. The floods varied in their stages, peaks, and initial water contents. However, all floods produced very similar flux rates, suggesting that the recharge rates are less affected by the flood stages but rather controlled by flow duration and available aquifer storage under it. Large floods flood the stream channel terraces and promote the larger transmission losses. These, however, make only a negligible contribution to the recharge of the ground water. It is the flood duration within the active streambed, which may increase with flood magnitude that is important to the recharge process.

Monitoring the extent of flooding : Based on a case study in Queensland

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Thompson, R.J.; Van Oosterom, P.J.M.; Zlatanova, S.; Van de Giesen, N.C.; Goulevitch, B.

2011-01-01

“Of droughts and flooding rains” (Dorothea Mackellar 1885-1968, “My Country”). The recent flooding in Queensland affected rural areas, mines, towns and cities including the state capital. Tracking such an event on a day-by day basis raises practical and theoretical issues. While this year’s floods

Flash flood forecasting, warning and risk management: the HYDRATE project

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Borga, M.; Anagnostou, E.N.; Bloeschl, G.; Creutin, J.-D.

2011-01-01

Highlights: → We characterize flash flood events in various regions of Europe. → We provide guidance to improve observations and monitoring of flash floods. → Flash floods are associated to orography and are influenced by initial soil moisture conditions. → Models for flash flood forecasting and flash flood hazard assessment are illustrated and discussed. → We examine implications for flood risk policy and discuss recommendations received from end users. - Abstract: The management of flash flood hazards and risks is a critical component of public safety and quality of life. Flash-floods develop at space and time scales that conventional observation systems are not able to monitor for rainfall and river discharge. Consequently, the atmospheric and hydrological generating mechanisms of flash-floods are poorly understood, leading to highly uncertain forecasts of these events. The objective of the HYDRATE project has been to improve the scientific basis of flash flood forecasting by advancing and harmonising a European-wide innovative flash flood observation strategy and developing a coherent set of technologies and tools for effective early warning systems. To this end, the project included actions on the organization of the existing flash flood data patrimony across Europe. The final aim of HYDRATE was to enhance the capability of flash flood forecasting in ungauged basins by exploiting the extended availability of flash flood data and the improved process understanding. This paper provides a review of the work conducted in HYDRATE with a special emphasis on how this body of research can contribute to guide the policy-life cycle concerning flash flood risk management.

Flood and Weather Monitoring Using Real-time Twitter Data Streams

Science.gov (United States)

Demir, I.; Sit, M. A.; Sermet, M. Y.

2016-12-01

Social media data is a widely used source to making inference within public crisis periods and events in disaster times. Specifically, since Twitter provides large-scale data publicly in real-time, it is one of the most extensive resources with location information. This abstract provides an overview of a real-time Twitter analysis system to support flood preparedness and response using a comprehensive information-centric flood ontology and natural language processing. Within the scope of this project, we deal with acquisition and processing of real-time Twitter data streams. System fetches the tweets with specified keywords and classifies them as related to flooding or heavy weather conditions. The system uses machine learning algorithms to discover patterns using the correlation between tweets and Iowa Flood Information System's (IFIS) extensive resources. The system uses these patterns to forecast the formation and progress of a potential future flood event. While fetching tweets, predefined hashtags are used for filtering and enhancing the relevancy for selected tweets. With this project, tweets can also be used as an alternative data source where other data sources are not sufficient for specific tasks. During the disasters, the photos that people upload alongside their tweets can be collected and placed to appropriate locations on a mapping system. This allows decision making authorities and communities to see the most recent outlook of the disaster interactively. In case of an emergency, concentration of tweets can help the authorities to determine a strategy on how to reach people most efficiently while providing them the supplies they need. Thanks to the extendable nature of the flood ontology and framework, results from this project will be a guide for other natural disasters, and will be shared with the community.

Towards a Global Monitoring System for CMS Computing Operations

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Bauerdick, L. A.T. [Fermilab; Sciaba, Andrea [CERN

2012-01-01

The operation of the CMS computing system requires a complex monitoring system to cover all its aspects: central services, databases, the distributed computing infrastructure, production and analysis workflows, the global overview of the CMS computing activities and the related historical information. Several tools are available to provide this information, developed both inside and outside of the collaboration and often used in common with other experiments. Despite the fact that the current monitoring allowed CMS to successfully perform its computing operations, an evolution of the system is clearly required, to adapt to the recent changes in the data and workload management tools and models and to address some shortcomings that make its usage less than optimal. Therefore, a recent and ongoing coordinated effort was started in CMS, aiming at improving the entire monitoring system by identifying its weaknesses and the new requirements from the stakeholders, rationalise and streamline existing components and drive future software development. This contribution gives a complete overview of the CMS monitoring system and a description of all the recent activities that have been started with the goal of providing a more integrated, modern and functional global monitoring system for computing operations.

Development of a flood-induced health risk prediction model for Africa

Science.gov (United States)

Lee, D.; Block, P. J.

2017-12-01

Globally, many floods occur in developing or tropical regions where the impact on public health is substantial, including death and injury, drinking water, endemic disease, and so on. Although these flood impacts on public health have been investigated, integrated management of floods and flood-induced health risks is technically and institutionally limited. Specifically, while the use of climatic and hydrologic forecasts for disaster management has been highlighted, analogous predictions for forecasting the magnitude and impact of health risks are lacking, as is the infrastructure for health early warning systems, particularly in developing countries. In this study, we develop flood-induced health risk prediction model for African regions using season-ahead flood predictions with climate drivers and a variety of physical and socio-economic information, such as local hazard, exposure, resilience, and health vulnerability indicators. Skillful prediction of flood and flood-induced health risks can contribute to practical pre- and post-disaster responses in both local- and global-scales, and may eventually be integrated into multi-hazard early warning systems for informed advanced planning and management. This is especially attractive for areas with limited observations and/or little capacity to develop flood-induced health risk warning systems.

Flood Water Segmentation from Crowdsourced Images

Science.gov (United States)

Nguyen, J. K.; Minsker, B. S.

2017-12-01

In the United States, 176 people were killed by flooding in 2015. Along with the loss of human lives is the economic cost which is estimated to be $4.5 billion per flood event. Urban flooding has become a recent concern due to the increase in population, urbanization, and global warming. As more and more people are moving into towns and cities with infrastructure incapable of coping with floods, there is a need for more scalable solutions for urban flood management.The proliferation of camera-equipped mobile devices have led to a new source of information for flood research. In-situ photographs captured by people provide information at the local level that remotely sensed images fail to capture. Applications of crowdsourced images to flood research required understanding the content of the image without the need for user input. This paper addresses the problem of how to automatically segment a flooded and non-flooded region in crowdsourced images. Previous works require two images taken at similar angle and perspective of the location when it is flooded and when it is not flooded. We examine three different algorithms from the computer vision literature that are able to perform segmentation using a single flood image without these assumptions. The performance of each algorithm is evaluated on a collection of labeled crowdsourced flood images. We show that it is possible to achieve a segmentation accuracy of 80% using just a single image.

Representing Geospatial Environment Observation Capability Information: A Case Study of Managing Flood Monitoring Sensors in the Jinsha River Basin

Science.gov (United States)

Hu, Chuli; Guan, Qingfeng; Li, Jie; Wang, Ke; Chen, Nengcheng

2016-01-01

Sensor inquirers cannot understand comprehensive or accurate observation capability information because current observation capability modeling does not consider the union of multiple sensors nor the effect of geospatial environmental features on the observation capability of sensors. These limitations result in a failure to discover credible sensors or plan for their collaboration for environmental monitoring. The Geospatial Environmental Observation Capability (GEOC) is proposed in this study and can be used as an information basis for the reliable discovery and collaborative planning of multiple environmental sensors. A field-based GEOC (GEOCF) information representation model is built. Quintuple GEOCF feature components and two GEOCF operations are formulated based on the geospatial field conceptual framework. The proposed GEOCF markup language is used to formalize the proposed GEOCF. A prototype system called GEOCapabilityManager is developed, and a case study is conducted for flood observation in the lower reaches of the Jinsha River Basin. The applicability of the GEOCF is verified through the reliable discovery of flood monitoring sensors and planning for the collaboration of these sensors. PMID:27999247

Design of flood early warning system with wifi network based on smartphone

Science.gov (United States)

Supani, Ahyar; Andriani, Yuli; Taqwa, Ahmad

2017-11-01

Today, the development using internet of things enables activities surrounding us to be monitored, controlled, predicted and calculated remotely through connections to the internet network such as monitoring activities of long-distance flood warning with information technology. Applying an information technology in the field of flood early warning has been developed in the world, either connected to internet network or not. The internet network that has been done in this paper is the design of WiFi network to access data of rainfall, water level and flood status at any time with a smartphone coming from flood early warning system. The results obtained when test of data accessing with smartphone are in form of rainfall and water level graphs against time and flood status indicators consisting of 3 flood states: Standby 2, Standby 1 and Flood. It is concluded that data are from flood early warning system has been able to accessed and displayed on smartphone via WiFi network in any time and real time.

Next generation of global land cover characterization, mapping, and monitoring

Science.gov (United States)

Giri, Chandra; Pengra, Bruce; Long, J.; Loveland, Thomas R.

2013-01-01

Land cover change is increasingly affecting the biophysics, biogeochemistry, and biogeography of the Earth's surface and the atmosphere, with far-reaching consequences to human well-being. However, our scientific understanding of the distribution and dynamics of land cover and land cover change (LCLCC) is limited. Previous global land cover assessments performed using coarse spatial resolution (300 m–1 km) satellite data did not provide enough thematic detail or change information for global change studies and for resource management. High resolution (∼30 m) land cover characterization and monitoring is needed that permits detection of land change at the scale of most human activity and offers the increased flexibility of environmental model parameterization needed for global change studies. However, there are a number of challenges to overcome before producing such data sets including unavailability of consistent global coverage of satellite data, sheer volume of data, unavailability of timely and accurate training and validation data, difficulties in preparing image mosaics, and high performance computing requirements. Integration of remote sensing and information technology is needed for process automation and high-performance computing needs. Recent developments in these areas have created an opportunity for operational high resolution land cover mapping, and monitoring of the world. Here, we report and discuss these advancements and opportunities in producing the next generations of global land cover characterization, mapping, and monitoring at 30-m spatial resolution primarily in the context of United States, Group on Earth Observations Global 30 m land cover initiative (UGLC).

Large Scale Flood Risk Analysis using a New Hyper-resolution Population Dataset

Science.gov (United States)

Smith, A.; Neal, J. C.; Bates, P. D.; Quinn, N.; Wing, O.

2017-12-01

Here we present the first national scale flood risk analyses, using high resolution Facebook Connectivity Lab population data and data from a hyper resolution flood hazard model. In recent years the field of large scale hydraulic modelling has been transformed by new remotely sensed datasets, improved process representation, highly efficient flow algorithms and increases in computational power. These developments have allowed flood risk analysis to be undertaken in previously unmodeled territories and from continental to global scales. Flood risk analyses are typically conducted via the integration of modelled water depths with an exposure dataset. Over large scales and in data poor areas, these exposure data typically take the form of a gridded population dataset, estimating population density using remotely sensed data and/or locally available census data. The local nature of flooding dictates that for robust flood risk analysis to be undertaken both hazard and exposure data should sufficiently resolve local scale features. Global flood frameworks are enabling flood hazard data to produced at 90m resolution, resulting in a mis-match with available population datasets which are typically more coarsely resolved. Moreover, these exposure data are typically focused on urban areas and struggle to represent rural populations. In this study we integrate a new population dataset with a global flood hazard model. The population dataset was produced by the Connectivity Lab at Facebook, providing gridded population data at 5m resolution, representing a resolution increase over previous countrywide data sets of multiple orders of magnitude. Flood risk analysis undertaken over a number of developing countries are presented, along with a comparison of flood risk analyses undertaken using pre-existing population datasets.

Application research for 4D technology in flood forecasting and evaluation

Science.gov (United States)

Li, Ziwei; Liu, Yutong; Cao, Hongjie

1998-08-01

In order to monitor the region which disaster flood happened frequently in China, satisfy the great need of province governments for high accuracy monitoring and evaluated data for disaster and improve the efficiency for repelling disaster, under the Ninth Five-year National Key Technologies Programme, the method was researched for flood forecasting and evaluation using satellite and aerial remoted sensed image and land monitor data. The effective and practicable flood forecasting and evaluation system was established and DongTing Lake was selected as the test site. Modern Digital photogrammetry, remote sensing and GIS technology was used in this system, the disastrous flood could be forecasted and loss can be evaluated base on '4D' (DEM -- Digital Elevation Model, DOQ -- Digital OrthophotoQuads, DRG -- Digital Raster Graph, DTI -- Digital Thematic Information) disaster background database. The technology of gathering and establishing method for '4D' disaster environment background database, application technology for flood forecasting and evaluation based on '4D' background data and experimental results for DongTing Lake test site were introduced in detail in this paper.

Doubling of coastal flooding frequency within decades due to sea-level rise

Science.gov (United States)

Vitousek, Sean; Barnard, Patrick L.; Fletcher, Charles H.; Frazer, Neil; Erikson, Li; Storlazzi, Curt D.

2017-01-01

Global climate change drives sea-level rise, increasing the frequency of coastal flooding. In most coastal regions, the amount of sea-level rise occurring over years to decades is significantly smaller than normal ocean-level fluctuations caused by tides, waves, and storm surge. However, even gradual sea-level rise can rapidly increase the frequency and severity of coastal flooding. So far, global-scale estimates of increased coastal flooding due to sea-level rise have not considered elevated water levels due to waves, and thus underestimate the potential impact. Here we use extreme value theory to combine sea-level projections with wave, tide, and storm surge models to estimate increases in coastal flooding on a continuous global scale. We find that regions with limited water-level variability, i.e., short-tailed flood-level distributions, located mainly in the Tropics, will experience the largest increases in flooding frequency. The 10 to 20 cm of sea-level rise expected no later than 2050 will more than double the frequency of extreme water-level events in the Tropics, impairing the developing economies of equatorial coastal cities and the habitability of low-lying Pacific island nations.

Doubling of coastal flooding frequency within decades due to sea-level rise.

Science.gov (United States)

Vitousek, Sean; Barnard, Patrick L; Fletcher, Charles H; Frazer, Neil; Erikson, Li; Storlazzi, Curt D

2017-05-18

Global climate change drives sea-level rise, increasing the frequency of coastal flooding. In most coastal regions, the amount of sea-level rise occurring over years to decades is significantly smaller than normal ocean-level fluctuations caused by tides, waves, and storm surge. However, even gradual sea-level rise can rapidly increase the frequency and severity of coastal flooding. So far, global-scale estimates of increased coastal flooding due to sea-level rise have not considered elevated water levels due to waves, and thus underestimate the potential impact. Here we use extreme value theory to combine sea-level projections with wave, tide, and storm surge models to estimate increases in coastal flooding on a continuous global scale. We find that regions with limited water-level variability, i.e., short-tailed flood-level distributions, located mainly in the Tropics, will experience the largest increases in flooding frequency. The 10 to 20 cm of sea-level rise expected no later than 2050 will more than double the frequency of extreme water-level events in the Tropics, impairing the developing economies of equatorial coastal cities and the habitability of low-lying Pacific island nations.

Global system for hydrological monitoring and forecasting in real time at high resolution

Science.gov (United States)

Ortiz, Enrique; De Michele, Carlo; Todini, Ezio; Cifres, Enrique

2016-04-01

This project presented at the EGU 2016 born of solidarity and the need to dignify the most disadvantaged people living in the poorest countries (Africa, South America and Asia, which are continually exposed to changes in the hydrologic cycle suffering events of large floods and/or long periods of droughts. It is also a special year this 2016, Year of Mercy, in which we must engage with the most disadvantaged of our Planet (Gaia) making available to them what we do professionally and scientifically. The project called "Global system for hydrological monitoring and forecasting in real time at high resolution" is Non-Profit and aims to provide at global high resolution (1km2) hydrological monitoring and forecasting in real time and continuously coupling Weather Forecast of Global Circulation Models, such us GFS-0.25° (Deterministic and Ensembles Run) forcing a physically based distributed hydrological model computationally efficient, such as the latest version extended of TOPKAPI model, named TOPKAPI-eXtended. Finally using the MCP approach for the proper use of ensembles for Predictive Uncertainty assessment essentially based on a multiple regression in the Normal space, can be easily extended to use ensembles to represent the local (in time) smaller or larger conditional predictive uncertainty, as a function of the ensemble spread. In this way, each prediction in time accounts for both the predictive uncertainty of the ensemble mean and that of the ensemble spread. To perform a continuous hydrological modeling with TOPKAPI-X model and have hot start of hydrological status of watersheds, the system assimilated products of rainfall and temperature derived from remote sensing, such as product 3B42RT of TRMM NASA and others.The system will be integrated into a Decision Support System (DSS) platform, based on geographical data. The DSS is a web application (For Pc, Tablet/Mobile phone): It does not need installation (all you need is a web browser and an internet

Catchment scale multi-objective flood management

Science.gov (United States)

Rose, Steve; Worrall, Peter; Rosolova, Zdenka; Hammond, Gene

2010-05-01

techniques will include: controlling headwater drainage, increasing evapotranspiration and interception by creating new woodlands in the upper catchment areas, enabling coarse woody debris dams to slow down water flows through steep valleys, improving soil water storage potential by appropriate soil and crop management, retaining water on lowland flood meadows and wet woodland creation within the floodplain. The project, due to run from 2009 until 2013, incorporates hydrometric and water quality monitoring, together with hydrologic and hydraulic modelling in order to attempt to demonstrate the effect of land management changes on flood dynamics and flood risk management. To date, the project team have undertaken the fundamental catchment characterisation work to understand its physical setting and the interaction of the physical processes that influence the hydrological response of the catchment to incident precipitation. The results of this initial work has led to the identification of a suitably robust hydrometric monitoring network within the catchments to meet the needs of providing both quantitative evidence of the impacts of land management change on flood risk, together with generating good quality datasets for the validation and testing of the new hydrologic models. As the project aims to demonstrate ‘best practice' in all areas, the opportunity has been taken to install a network of automatic hydrometric monitoring equipment, together with an associated telemetry system, in order to maximise data coverage, accuracy and reliability. Good quality datasets are a critical requirement for reliable modelling. The modelling will also be expanded to incorporate climate change scenarios. This paper will describe the catchment characterisation work undertaken to date, the proposed land management changes in relation to flood risk management, the initial catchment hydraulic modelling work and the implementation of the new hydrometric monitoring network within the study area.

Assessing uncertainty in SRTM elevations for global flood modelling

Science.gov (United States)

Hawker, L. P.; Rougier, J.; Neal, J. C.; Bates, P. D.

2017-12-01

The SRTM DEM is widely used as the topography input to flood models in data-sparse locations. Understanding spatial error in the SRTM product is crucial in constraining uncertainty about elevations and assessing the impact of these upon flood prediction. Assessment of SRTM error was carried out by Rodriguez et al (2006), but this did not explicitly quantify the spatial structure of vertical errors in the DEM, and nor did it distinguish between errors over different types of landscape. As a result, there is a lack of information about spatial structure of vertical errors of the SRTM in the landscape that matters most to flood models - the floodplain. Therefore, this study attempts this task by comparing SRTM, an error corrected SRTM product (The MERIT DEM of Yamazaki et al., 2017) and near truth LIDAR elevations for 3 deltaic floodplains (Mississippi, Po, Wax Lake) and a large lowland region (the Fens, UK). Using the error covariance function, calculated by comparing SRTM elevations to the near truth LIDAR, perturbations of the 90m SRTM DEM were generated, producing a catalogue of plausible DEMs. This allows modellers to simulate a suite of plausible DEMs at any aggregated block size above native SRTM resolution. Finally, the generated DEM's were input into a hydrodynamic model of the Mekong Delta, built using the LISFLOOD-FP hydrodynamic model, to assess how DEM error affects the hydrodynamics and inundation extent across the domain. The end product of this is an inundation map with the probability of each pixel being flooded based on the catalogue of DEMs. In a world of increasing computer power, but a lack of detailed datasets, this powerful approach can be used throughout natural hazard modelling to understand how errors in the SRTM DEM can impact the hazard assessment.

GLOFs in the WOS: bibliometrics, geographies and global trends of research on glacial lake outburst floods (Web of Science, 1979-2016)

Science.gov (United States)

Emmer, Adam

2018-03-01

Research on glacial lake outburst floods (GLOFs) - specific low-frequency, high-magnitude floods originating in glacial lakes, including jökulhlaups - is well justified in the context of glacier ice loss and glacial lake evolution in glacierized areas all over the world. Increasing GLOF research activities, which are documented by the increasing number of published research items, have been observed in the past few decades; however, comprehensive insight into the GLOF research community, its global bibliometrics, geographies and trends in research is missing. To fill this gap, a set of 892 GLOF research items published in the Web of Science database covering the period 1979-2016 was analysed. General bibliometric characteristics, citations and references were analysed, revealing a certain change in the publishing paradigm over time. Furthermore, the global geographies of research on GLOFs were studied, focusing on (i) where GLOFs are studied, (ii) who studies GLOFs, (iii) the export of research on GLOFs and (iv) international collaboration. The observed trends and links to the challenges ahead are discussed and placed in a broader context.

Field note from Pakistan floods: Preventing future flood disasters

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Marcus Oxley

2011-04-01

Full Text Available Unusually heavy monsoon rains in Northern Pakistan have caused disproportionate levels of extreme flooding and unprecedented flood losses across the entire Indus River basin. Extensive land use changes and environmental degradation in the uplands and lowlands of the river basin together with the construction of a “built environment” out of balance with the functioning, capacities, scale and limits of the local ecosystems have exposed millions of people to an increased risk of extreme #ooding. The catastrophic nature of the August #ooding provides a unique opportunity to fundamentally change Pakistan’s current socio-economic development path by incorporating disaster risk reduction and climate change measures into the post-disaster recovery process to rebuild a safer, more resilient nation. In January 2005 one hundred and sixty-eight nations adopted the Hyogo Framework for Action (HFA2005-2015 to bring about a “substantial reduction in disaster losses” by 2015. Despite this global initiative a series of major disasters, including the recent flooding in Pakistan, all indicate that we are not on track to achieve the substantial reduction of disaster losses. The following fieldnote considers what can be done to accelerate progress towards implementation of the Hyogo Framework, drawing on insights and lessons learnt from the August flooding to understand how Pakistan and neighbouring countries can prevent a repeat of such catastrophic disasters in future years.

Consistency of extreme flood estimation approaches

Science.gov (United States)

Felder, Guido; Paquet, Emmanuel; Penot, David; Zischg, Andreas; Weingartner, Rolf

2017-04-01

Estimations of low-probability flood events are frequently used for the planning of infrastructure as well as for determining the dimensions of flood protection measures. There are several well-established methodical procedures to estimate low-probability floods. However, a global assessment of the consistency of these methods is difficult to achieve, the "true value" of an extreme flood being not observable. Anyway, a detailed comparison performed on a given case study brings useful information about the statistical and hydrological processes involved in different methods. In this study, the following three different approaches for estimating low-probability floods are compared: a purely statistical approach (ordinary extreme value statistics), a statistical approach based on stochastic rainfall-runoff simulation (SCHADEX method), and a deterministic approach (physically based PMF estimation). These methods are tested for two different Swiss catchments. The results and some intermediate variables are used for assessing potential strengths and weaknesses of each method, as well as for evaluating the consistency of these methods.

The Global Fund's paradigm of oversight, monitoring, and results in Mozambique.

Science.gov (United States)

Warren, Ashley; Cordon, Roberto; Told, Michaela; de Savigny, Don; Kickbusch, Ilona; Tanner, Marcel

2017-12-12

The Global Fund is one of the largest actors in global health. In 2015 the Global Fund was credited with disbursing close to 10 % of all development assistance for health. In 2011 it began a reform process in response to internal reviews following allegations of recipients' misuse of funds. Reforms have focused on grant application processes thus far while the core structures and paradigm have remained intact. We report results of discussions with key stakeholders on the Global Fund, its paradigm of oversight, monitoring, and results in Mozambique. We conducted 38 semi-structured in-depth interviews in Maputo, Mozambique and members of the Global Fund Board and Secretariat in Switzerland. In-country stakeholders were representatives from Global Fund country structures (eg. Principle Recipient), the Ministry of Health, health or development attachés bilateral and multilateral agencies, consultants, and the NGO coordinating body. Thematic coding revealed concerns about the combination of weak country oversight with stringent and cumbersome requirements for monitoring and evaluation linked to performance-based financing. Analysis revealed that despite the changes associated with the New Funding Model, respondents in both Maputo and Geneva firmly believe challenges remain in Global Fund's structure and paradigm. The lack of a country office has many negative downstream effects including reliance on in-country partners and ineffective coordination. Due to weak managerial and absorptive capacity, more oversight is required than is afforded by country team visits. In-country partners provide much needed support for Global Fund recipients, but roles, responsibilities, and accountability must be clearly defined for a successful long-term partnership. Furthermore, decision-makers in Geneva recognize in-country coordination as vital to successful implementation, and partners welcome increased Global Fund engagement. To date, there are no institutional requirements for

STORM3: a new flood forecast management and monitoring system in accordance with the recent Italian national directive

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

A. Burastero

2005-01-01

Full Text Available The effectiveness of alert systems for civil protection purposes, defined as the ability to minimize the level of risk in a region subjected to an imminent flood event, strongly depends on availability and exploitability of information. It also depends on technical expertise and the ability to easily manage the civil protection actions through the organization into standardized procedures. Hydro-geologic and hydraulic risk estimation, based on the combination of different technical issues (in this case meteorological, hydro-geological, hydraulic matters, but also socio-economic ones, requires the integration between quasi-static and time-varying information within the same operative platform. Beside the real-time data exchange, a Decision Support System must provide tools which enable knowledge sharing among the civil protection centres. Moreover, due to the amount and heterogeneity of information, quality procedures become necessary to handle all forecasting and monitoring routines within operative centres, according to the latest national directive. In Italy procedures on the civil protection matter have been condensed into the Prime Minister's Directive (27 February 2004. STORM3, an innovative management and monitoring System for real-time flood forecasting and warning, takes in the Directive, supporting the operator step by step within the different phases of civil protection activities.

Flood Response System—A Case Study

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Yogesh Kumar Singh

2017-06-01

Full Text Available Flood Response System (FRS is a network-enabled solution developed using open-source software. The system has query based flood damage assessment modules with outputs in the form of spatial maps and statistical databases. FRS effectively facilitates the management of post-disaster activities caused due to flood, like displaying spatial maps of area affected, inundated roads, etc., and maintains a steady flow of information at all levels with different access rights depending upon the criticality of the information. It is designed to facilitate users in managing information related to flooding during critical flood seasons and analyzing the extent of damage. The inputs to FRS are provided using two components: (1 a semi-automated application developed indigenously, to delineate inundated areas for Near-Real Time Flood Monitoring using Active Microwave Remote Sensing data and (2 a two-dimensional (2D hydrodynamic river model generated outputs for water depth and velocity in flooded areas for an embankment breach scenario. The 2D Hydrodynamic model, CCHE2D (Center for Computational Hydroscience and Engineering Two-Dimensional model, was used to simulate an area of 600 km2 in the flood-prone zone of the Brahmaputra basin. The resultant inundated area from the model was found to be 85% accurate when validated with post-flood optical satellite data.

MODIS-based multi-parametric platform for mapping of flood affected areas. Case study: 2006 Danube extreme flood in Romania

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Craciunescu Vasile

2016-12-01

Full Text Available Flooding remains the most widely distributed natural hazard in Europe, leading to significant economic and social impact. Earth observation data is presently capable of making fundamental contributions towards reducing the detrimental effects of extreme floods. Technological advance makes development of online services able to process high volumes of satellite data without the need of dedicated desktop software licenses possible. The main objective of the case study is to present and evaluate a methodology for mapping of flooded areas based on MODIS satellite images derived indices and using state-of-the-art geospatial web services. The methodology and the developed platform were tested with data for the historical flood event that affected the Danube floodplain in 2006 in Romania. The results proved that, despite the relative coarse resolution, MODIS data is very useful for mapping the development flooded area in large plain floods. Moreover it was shown, that the possibility to adapt and combine the existing global algorithms for flood detection to fit the local conditions is extremely important to obtain accurate results.

Mapping Daily and Maximum Flood Extents at 90-m Resolution During Hurricanes Harvey and Irma Using Passive Microwave Remote Sensing

Science.gov (United States)

Galantowicz, J. F.; Picton, J.; Root, B.

2017-12-01

Passive microwave remote sensing can provided a distinct perspective on flood events by virtue of wide sensor fields of view, frequent observations from multiple satellites, and sensitivity through clouds and vegetation. During Hurricanes Harvey and Irma, we used AMSR2 (Advanced Microwave Scanning Radiometer 2, JAXA) data to map flood extents starting from the first post-storm rain-free sensor passes. Our standard flood mapping algorithm (FloodScan) derives flooded fraction from 22-km microwave data (AMSR2 or NASA's GMI) in near real time and downscales it to 90-m resolution using a database built from topography, hydrology, and Global Surface Water Explorer data and normalized to microwave data footprint shapes. During Harvey and Irma we tested experimental versions of the algorithm designed to map the maximum post-storm flood extent rapidly and made a variety of map products available immediately for use in storm monitoring and response. The maps have several unique features including spanning the entire storm-affected area and providing multiple post-storm updates as flood water shifted and receded. From the daily maps we derived secondary products such as flood duration, maximum flood extent (Figure 1), and flood depth. In this presentation, we describe flood extent evolution, maximum extent, and local details as detected by the FloodScan algorithm in the wake of Harvey and Irma. We compare FloodScan results to other available flood mapping resources, note observed shortcomings, and describe improvements made in response. We also discuss how best-estimate maps could be updated in near real time by merging FloodScan products and data from other remote sensing systems and hydrological models.

Floods and Flash Flooding

Science.gov (United States)

Floods and flash flooding Now is the time to determine your area’s flood risk. If you are not sure whether you ... If you are in a floodplain, consider buying flood insurance. Do not drive around barricades. If your ...

Integrating Global Open Geo-Information for Major Disaster Assessment: A Case Study of the Myanmar Flood

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Suju Li

2017-07-01

Full Text Available Major disasters typically impact large areas, cause considerable damages, and result in significant human and economic losses. The timely and accurate estimation of impacts and damages is essential to better understand disaster conditions and to support emergency response operations. Geo-information drawn from various sources at multi spatial-temporal scales can be used for disaster assessments through a synthesis of hazard, exposure, and post disaster information based on pertinent approaches. Along with the increased availability of open sourced data and cooperation initiatives, more global scale geo-information, including global land cover datasets, has been produced and can be integrated with other information for disaster dynamic damage assessment (e.g., impact estimation immediately after a disaster occurs, physical damage assessment during the emergency response stage, and comprehensive assessment following an emergency response. Residential areas and arable lands affected by the flood disaster occurring from July to August 2015 in Myanmar were assessed based on satellite images, GlobeLand30 data, and other global open sourced information as a study case. The results show that integrating global open geo-information could serve as a practical and efficient means of assessing damage resulting from major disasters worldwide, especially at the early emergency response stage.

Thirty Years Later: Reflections of the Big Thompson Flood, Colorado, 1976 to 2006

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Jarrett, R. D.; Costa, J. E.; Brunstein, F. C.; Quesenberry, C. A.; Vandas, S. J.; Capesius, J. P.; O'Neill, G. B.

2006-12-01

Thirty years ago, over 300 mm of rain fell in about 4 to 6 hours in the middle reaches of the Big Thompson River Basin during the devastating flash flood on July 31, 1976. The rainstorm produced flood discharges that exceeded 40 m3/s/km2. A peak discharge of 883 m3/s was estimated at the Big Thompson River near Drake streamflow-gaging station. The raging waters left 144 people dead, 250 injured, and over 800 people were evacuated by helicopter. Four-hundred eighteen homes and businesses were destroyed, as well as 438 automobiles, and damage to infrastructure left the canyon reachable only via helicopter. Total damage was estimated in excess of $116 million (2006 dollars). Natural hazards similar to the Big Thompson flood are rare, but the probability of a similar event hitting the Front Range, other parts of Colorado, or other parts of the Nation is real. Although much smaller in scale than the Big Thompson flood, several flash floods have happened during the monsoon in early July 2006 in the Colorado foothills that reemphasized the hazards associated with flash flooding. The U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) conducts flood research to help understand and predict the magnitude and likelihood of large streamflow events such as the Big Thompson flood. A summary of hydrologic conditions of the 1976 flood, what the 1976 flood can teach us about flash floods, a description of some of the advances in USGS flood science as a consequence of this disaster, and lessons that we learned to help reduce loss of life from this extraordinary flash flood are discussed. In the 30 years since the Big Thompson flood, there have been important advances in streamflow monitoring and flood warning. The National Weather Service (NWS) NEXRAD radar allows real-time monitoring of precipitation in most places in the United States. The USGS currently (2006) operates about 7,250 real-time streamflow-gaging stations in the United States that are monitored by the USGS, the NWS, and emergency managers

Relating climate change policy to poverty policy: assessing the global exposure of the poor to floods and droughts

Science.gov (United States)

Winsemius, Hessel; Jongman, Brenden; Veldkamp, Ted; Hallegatte, Stéphane; Bangalore, Mook; Ward, Philip

2016-04-01

Prior to the COP21 conference in Paris this year, the World Bank published a report called "Shockwaves - Managing the Impacts of Climate Change on Poverty". The report flagged that ending poverty and stabilizing climate change should be jointly tackled and that without a good joint policy, a further 100 million people could become trapped in poverty by 2050. As part of the "Shockwaves" report, we investigated whether low-income households are disproportionately overrepresented in hazard-prone areas compared to households with higher income. Furthermore, the hazardous conditions under which poor households are exposed to now may become worse due to climate change with resulting increases in intensity and frequency of floods and droughts. We also show how the amount of affected people to these natural hazards change in the future if nothing is done. We use recent advances in the global spatial modeling of flood and drought hazard and a large sample of household surveys containing asset and income data to explore the relationships.

Linking events, science and media for flood and drought management

Science.gov (United States)

Ding, M.; Wei, Y.; Zheng, H.; Zhao, Y.

2017-12-01

Throughout history, floods and droughts have been closely related to the development of human riparian civilization. The socio-economic damage caused by floods/droughts appears to be on the rise and the frequency of floods/droughts increases due to global climate change. In this paper, we take a fresh perspective to examine the (dis)connection between events (floods and droughts), research papers and media reports in globally 42 river basins between 1990 and 2012 for better solutions in floods and droughts management. We collected hydrological data from NOAA/ESPL Physical Sciences Division (PSD) and CPC Merged Analysis of Precipitation (CMAP), all relevant scientific papers from Web of Science (WOS) and media records from Emergency Events Database (EM-DAT) during the study period, presented the temporal variability at annual level of these three groups of data, and analysed the (connection) among these three groups of data in typical river basins. We found that 1) the number of flood related reports on both media and research is much more than those on droughts; 2) the concerns of media reports just focused on partial topics (death, severity and damage) and partial catchments (Mediterranean Sea and Nile River); 3) the scientific contribution on floods and droughts were limited within some river basins such as Nile River Basin, Parana River Basin, Savannah River Basin and Murray-Darling River Basin; 4) the scientific contribution on floods and droughts were limited within only a few of disciplines such as Geology, Environmental Sciences & Ecology, Agriculture, Engineering and Forestry. It is recommended that multiple disciplinary contribution and collaboration should be promoted to achieve comprehensive flood/drought management, and science and media should interactively play their valuable roles and in flood/drought issues. Keywords: Floods, droughts, events, science, media, flood and drought management

Spatiotemporal hazard mapping of a flood event "migration" in a transboundary river basin as an operational tool in flood risk management

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Perrou, Theodora; Papastergios, Asterios; Parcharidis, Issaak; Chini, Marco

2017-10-01

Flood disaster is one of the heaviest disasters in the world. It is necessary to monitor and evaluate the flood disaster in order to mitigate the consequences. As floods do not recognize borders, transboundary flood risk management is imperative in shared river basins. Disaster management is highly dependent on early information and requires data from the whole river basin. Based on the hypothesis that the flood events over the same area with same magnitude have almost identical evolution, it is crucial to develop a repository database of historical flood events. This tool, in the case of extended transboundary river basins, could constitute an operational warning system for the downstream area. The utility of SAR images for flood mapping, was demonstrated by previous studies but the SAR systems in orbit were not characterized by high operational capacity. Copernicus system will fill this gap in operational service for risk management, especially during emergency phase. The operational capabilities have been significantly improved by newly available satellite constellation, such as the Sentinel-1A AB mission, which is able to provide systematic acquisitions with a very high temporal resolution in a wide swath coverage. The present study deals with the monitoring of a transboundary flood event in Evros basin. The objective of the study is to create the "migration story" of the flooded areas on the basis of the evolution in time for the event occurred from October 2014 till May 2015. Flood hazard maps will be created, using SAR-based semi-automatic algorithms and then through the synthesis of the related maps in a GIS-system, a spatiotemporal thematic map of the event will be produced. The thematic map combined with TanDEM-X DEM, 12m/pixel spatial resolution, will define the non- affected areas which is a very useful information for the emergency planning and emergency response phases. The Sentinels meet the main requirements to be an effective and suitable

AVHRR for monitoring global tropical deforestation

Science.gov (United States)

Malingreau, J. P.; Laporte, N.; Tucker, C. J.

1989-01-01

Advanced Very High Resolution Radiometer (AVHRR) data have been used to assess the dynamics of forest trnsformations in three parts of the tropical belt. A large portion of the Amazon Basin has been systematically covered by Local Area Coverage (LAC) data in the 1985-1987 period. The analysis of the vegetation index and thermal data led to the identification and measurement of large areas of active deforestation. The Kalimantan/Borneo forest fires were monitored and their impact was evaluated using the Global Area Coverage (GAC) 4 km resolution data. Finally, High Resolution Picture Transmission (HRPT) data have provided preliminary information on current activities taking place at the boundary between the savanna and the forest in the Southern part of West Africa. The AVHRR approach is found to be a highly valuable means for carrying out deforestation assessments in regional and global perspectives.

Mechanisms of flood tolerance in wheat and rice

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Herzog, Max

Most crops are sensitive to excess water, and consequently floods have detrimental effects on crop yields worldwide. In addition, global climate change is expected to regionally increase the number of floods within decades, urging for more flood-tolerant crop cultivars to be released. The aim...... of this thesis was to assess mechanisms conferring rice (Oryza sativa) and wheat (Triticum aestivum) flood tolerance, focusing on the role of leaf gas films during plant submergence. Reviewing the literature showed that wheat germplasm holds genetic variation towards waterlogging (soil flooding), and highlighted...... that the contrasting submergence tolerance could rather be governed by tolerance to radical oxygen species or contrasting metabolic responses (other than carbohydrate consumption) to ethylene accumulation. Manipulating leaf gas film presence affected wheat and rice submergence tolerance such as plant growth...

Communication and flood risk awareness in the framework of DRIHM project

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Llasat, Maria-Carmen; Llasat-Botija, Montserrat; Gilabert, Joan; Marcos, Raül; Parodi, Antonio; Rebora, Nicola; Garrote, Luís

2014-05-01

One of the main objectives of the Hyogo Framework for Action 2005-2015 of the United Nations is to increase public awareness so as to understand the risks, vulnerabilities and disaster reduction globally. In the case of floods they are a major hazard in Spain. In the last 30 years alone, more than 300 flood and flash-flood events have been recorded. Usually these events produce minor damages and, occasionally, some deaths, usually due to imprudent behavior. In this context, improvements in the forecast and warning systems, the communication process and for the population to have a better knowledge using new technologies are welcome. The starting point of this communication is the analysis of the treatment of flood events made by the press, the risk perception of the population, as well as the communication tools and protocols of Civil Protection and Water Catalan Agency (ACA) in Catalonia (NE of Iberian Peninsula). Afterwards, the analysis of the application of new tools developed by the University of Barcelona, with specific emphasis on the collaboration with the population, is shown. La Rambla is an informative portal of flood prevention, where share knowledge and experiences with the population. It is also a historical flood site where everyone can contribute and participate by sending experiences, data, records, pictures and much more. In La Rambla we can find information such as flood prevention plans, acts, scientific vocabulary ... There are also sections on historical floods, photo galleries, quizzes, flood news, and much more. The blog will be also used as a platform to distribute post-event questionnaires in order to analyze social impact as well as the population behavior when faced with a flood. Besides this, social networks are some of the most important channels where warnings and flood risk situations can be communicated. In the case of Facebook and Twitter, we use the platforms as a warning channel, to have a simple monitoring of the event and

Determining the Financial Impact of Flood Hazards in Ungaged Basins

Science.gov (United States)

Cotterman, K. A.; Gutenson, J. L.; Pradhan, N. R.; Byrd, A.

2017-12-01

Many portions of the Earth lack adequate authoritative or in situ data that is of great value in determining natural hazard vulnerability from both anthropogenic and physical perspective. Such locations include the majority of developing nations, which do not possess adequate warning systems and protective infrastructure. The lack of warning and protection from natural hazards make these nations vulnerable to the destructive power of events such as floods. The goal of this research is to demonstrate an initial workflow with which to characterize flood financial hazards with global datasets and crowd-sourced, non-authoritative data in ungagged river basins. This workflow includes the hydrologic and hydraulic response of the watershed to precipitation, characterized by the physics-based modeling application Gridded Surface-Subsurface Hydrologic Analysis (GSSHA) model. In addition, data infrastructure and resources are available to approximate the human impact of flooding. Open source, volunteer geographic information (VGI) data can provide global coverage of elements at risk of flooding. Additional valuation mechanisms can then translate flood exposure into percentage and financial damage to each building. The combinations of these tools allow the authors to remotely assess flood hazards with minimal computational, temporal, and financial overhead. This combination of deterministic and stochastic modeling provides the means to quickly characterize watershed flood vulnerability and will allow emergency responders and planners to better understand the implications of flooding, both spatially and financially. In either a planning, real-time, or forecasting scenario, the system will assist the user in understanding basin flood vulnerability and increasing community resiliency and preparedness.

Global Monitoring of Mountain Glaciers Using High-Resolution Spotlight Imaging from the International Space Station

Science.gov (United States)

Donnellan, A.; Green, J. J.; Bills, B. G.; Goguen, J.; Ansar, A.; Knight, R. L.; Hallet, B.; Scambos, T. A.; Thompson, L. G.; Morin, P. J.

2013-12-01

Mountain glaciers around the world are retreating rapidly, contributing about 20% to present-day sea level rise. Numerous studies have shown that mountain glaciers are sensitive to global environmental change. Temperate-latitude glaciers and snowpack provide water for over 1 billion people. Glaciers are a resource for irrigation and hydroelectric power, but also pose flood and avalanche hazards. Accurate mass balance assessments have been made for only 280 glaciers, yet there are over 130,000 in the World Glacier Inventory. The rate of glacier retreat or advance can be highly variable, is poorly sampled, and inadequately understood. Liquid water from ice front lakes, rain, melt, or sea water and debris from rocks, dust, or pollution interact with glacier ice often leading to an amplification of warming and further melting. Many mountain glaciers undergo rapid and episodic events that greatly change their mass balance or extent but are sparsely documented. Events include calving, outburst floods, opening of crevasses, or iceberg motion. Spaceborne high-resolution spotlight optical imaging provides a means of clarifying the relationship between the health of mountain glaciers and global environmental change. Digital elevation models (DEMs) can be constructed from a series of images from a range of perspectives collected by staring at a target during a satellite overpass. It is possible to collect imagery for 1800 targets per month in the ×56° latitude range, construct high-resolution DEMs, and monitor changes in high detail over time with a high-resolution optical telescope mounted on the International Space Station (ISS). Snow and ice type, age, and maturity can be inferred from different color bands as well as distribution of liquid water. Texture, roughness, albedo, and debris distribution can be estimated by measuring bidirectional reflectance distribution functions (BRDF) and reflectance intensity as a function of viewing angle. The non-sun-synchronous orbit

An Approach to Flooding Inundation Combining the Streamflow Prediction Tool (SPT) and Downscaled Soil Moisture

Science.gov (United States)

Cotterman, K. A.; Follum, M. L.; Pradhan, N. R.; Niemann, J. D.

2017-12-01

Flooding impacts numerous aspects of society, from localized flash floods to continental-scale flood events. Many numerical flood models focus solely on riverine flooding, with some capable of capturing both localized and continental-scale flood events. However, these models neglect flooding away from channels that are related to excessive ponding, typically found in areas with flat terrain and poorly draining soils. In order to obtain a holistic view of flooding, we combine flood results from the Streamflow Prediction Tool (SPT), a riverine flood model, with soil moisture downscaling techniques to determine if a better representation of flooding is obtained. This allows for a more holistic understanding of potential flood prone areas, increasing the opportunity for more accurate warnings and evacuations during flooding conditions. Thirty-five years of near-global historical streamflow is reconstructed with continental-scale flow routing of runoff from global land surface models. Elevation data was also obtained worldwide, to establish a relationship between topographic attributes and soil moisture patterns. Derived soil moisture data is validated against observed soil moisture, increasing confidence in the ability to accurately capture soil moisture patterns. Potential flooding situations can be examined worldwide, with this study focusing on the United States, Central America, and the Philippines.

Entrepreneurship in Ireland 2012: global entrepreneurship monitor (GEM)

OpenAIRE

Fitzsimons, Paula; O'Gorman, Colm

2013-01-01

Report on entrepreneurship in Ireland in the year 2012. Data used is the Global Entrepreneurship Monitor (GEM) data for Ireland and selected comparative countries. The report profiles entrepreneurs, reports on the rate of entrepreneurship in Ireland, discusses female entrepreneurship, and positions these results in the context of Irish entrepreneurship policy.

Participatory monitoring to connect local and global priorities for forest restoration.

Science.gov (United States)

Evans, Kristen; Guariguata, Manuel R; Brancalion, Pedro H S

2018-03-13

New global initiatives to restore forest landscapes present an unparalleled opportunity to reverse deforestation and forest degradation. Participatory monitoring could play a crucial role in providing accountability, generating local buy in, and catalyzing learning in monitoring systems that need scalability and adaptability to a range of local sites. We synthesized current knowledge from literature searches and interviews to provide lessons for the development of a scalable, multisite participatory monitoring system. Studies show that local people can collect accurate data on forest change, drivers of change, threats to reforestation, and biophysical and socioeconomic impacts that remote sensing cannot. They can do this at one-third the cost of professionals. Successful participatory monitoring systems collect information on a few simple indicators, respond to local priorities, provide appropriate incentives for participation, and catalyze learning and decision making based on frequent analyses and multilevel interactions with other stakeholders. Participatory monitoring could provide a framework for linking global, national, and local needs, aspirations, and capacities for forest restoration. © 2018 The Authors. Conservation Biology published by Wiley Periodicals, Inc. on behalf of Society for Conservation Biology.

Estimation of phosphorus flux in rivers during flooding.

Science.gov (United States)

Chen, Yen-Chang; Liu, Jih-Hung; Kuo, Jan-Tai; Lin, Cheng-Fang

2013-07-01

rivers during flooding should be monitored to evaluate the loading of phosphorus more precisely. The results show that monitoring and controlling phosphorus transport during flooding can help prevent the eutrophication of a reservoir.

Behaviour of suspended particulate matter (SPM and selected trace metals during the 2002 summer flood in the River Elbe (Germany at Magdeburg monitoring station

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

M. Baborowski

2004-01-01

Full Text Available In August 2002, in the worst flooding in more than 100 years, the River Elbe destroyed built-up areas and caused widespread erosion and the relocation of soils and river sediments. To assess the pollutants entering the water, surveys of dissolved constituents and suspended particulate matter (SPM were carried out daily during the flood at a monitoring station near Magdeburg. The sampling point is part of the network of the International Commission for the Protection of the Elbe (ICPE. The results were compared with those of previous flood studies which used the same sampling strategy. Unlike past floods, the 2002 flood was characterised by the transport of relatively fine suspended material with a low mass concentration. Owing to different input sources, the maxima of dry weight and of particle number concentration occurred at different times. Hg, Fe, Mn, Zn, Cu, Ni and Cr showed a maximum concentration concurrent with the dry weight of the SPM, whereas the maximum concentrations of As, Pb, and Cd coincided with the particle number concentration peak. The concentration of particulate matter decreased rapidly, unlike the concentrations of dissolved substances such as DOC and trace metals, as well as the values of UV extinction, all of which remained high for a longer period. Comparing the results of the 2002 flood with the winter floods in 1995, 1999 and 2000, revealed increased values of As and Pb as well as higher concentrations of dissolved compounds. Keywords: river, flood, transport, suspended particulate matter, trace metals, dissolved compounds, Elbe

Global drought outlook by means of seasonal forecasts

Science.gov (United States)

Ziese, Markus; Fröhlich, Kristina; Rustemeier, Elke; Becker, Andreas

2017-04-01

Droughts are naturally occurring phenomena which are caused by a shortage of available water due to lower than normal precipitation and/or above normal evaporation. Depending on the length of the droughts, several sectors are affected starting with agriculture, then river and ground water levels and finally socio-economic losses at the long end of the spectrum of drought persistence. Droughts are extreme events that affect much larger areas and last much longer than floods, but are less geared towards media than floods being more short-scale in persistence and impacts. Finally the slow onset of droughts make the detection and early warning of their beginning difficult and time is lost for preparatory measures. Drought indices are developed to detect and classify droughts based on (meteorological) observations and possible additional information tailored to specific user needs, e.g. in agriculture, hydrology and other sectors. Not all drought indices can be utilized for global applications as not all input parameters are available at this scale. Therefore the Global Precipitation Climatology Centre (GPCC) developed a drought index as combination of the Standardized Drought Index (SPI) and the Standardized Precipitation Evapotranspiration Index (SPEI), the GPCC-DI. The GPCC-DI is applied to drought monitoring and retrospective analyses on a global scale. As the Deutscher Wetterdienst (DWD) operates a seasonal forecast system in cooperation with Max-Planck-Institute for Meteorology Hamburg and University of Hamburg, these data are also used for an outlook of drought conditions by means of the GPCC-DI. The reliability of seasonal precipitation forecasts is limited, so the drought outlook is available only for forecast months two to four. Based on the GPCC-DI, DWD provides a retrospective analysis, near-real-time monitoring and outlook of drought conditions on a global scale and regular basis.

A web-based Tamsui River flood early-warning system with correction of real-time water stage using monitoring data

Science.gov (United States)

Liao, H. Y.; Lin, Y. J.; Chang, H. K.; Shang, R. K.; Kuo, H. C.; Lai, J. S.; Tan, Y. C.

2017-12-01

Taiwan encounters heavy rainfalls frequently. There are three to four typhoons striking Taiwan every year. To provide lead time for reducing flood damage, this study attempt to build a flood early-warning system (FEWS) in Tanshui River using time series correction techniques. The predicted rainfall is used as the input for the rainfall-runoff model. Then, the discharges calculated by the rainfall-runoff model is converted to the 1-D river routing model. The 1-D river routing model will output the simulating water stages in 487 cross sections for the future 48-hr. The downstream water stage at the estuary in 1-D river routing model is provided by storm surge simulation. Next, the water stages of 487 cross sections are corrected by time series model such as autoregressive (AR) model using real-time water stage measurements to improve the predicted accuracy. The results of simulated water stages are displayed on a web-based platform. In addition, the models can be performed remotely by any users with web browsers through a user interface. The on-line video surveillance images, real-time monitoring water stages, and rainfalls can also be shown on this platform. If the simulated water stage exceeds the embankments of Tanshui River, the alerting lights of FEWS will be flashing on the screen. This platform runs periodically and automatically to generate the simulation graphic data of flood water stages for flood disaster prevention and decision making.

Real time high frequency monitoring of water quality in river streams using a UV-visible spectrometer: interest, limits and consequences for monitoring strategies

Science.gov (United States)

Faucheux, Mikaël; Fovet, Ophélie; Gruau, Gérard; Jaffrézic, Anne; Petitjean, Patrice; Gascuel-Odoux, Chantal; Ruiz, Laurent

2013-04-01

Stream water chemistry is highly variable in space and time, therefore high frequency water quality measurement methods are likely to lead to conceptual advances in the hydrological sciences. Sub-daily data on water quality improve the characterization of pollutant sources and pathways during flood events as well as during long-term periods [1]. However, real time, high frequency monitoring devices needs to be properly calibrated and validated in real streams. This study analyses data from in situ monitoring of a stream water quality. During two hydrological years (2010-11, 2011-12), a submersible UV-visible spectrometer (Scan Spectrolyser) was used for surface water quality measurement at the outlet of a headwater catchment located at Kervidy-Naizin, Western France (AgrHys long-term hydrological observatory, http://www.inra.fr/ore_agrhys/). The spectrometer is reagentless and equipped with an auto-cleaning system. It allows real time, in situ and high frequency (20 min) measurements and uses a multiwavelengt spectral (200-750 nm) for simultaneous measurement of nitrate, dissolved organic carbon (DOC) and total suspended solids (TSS). A global calibration based on a PLS (Partial Least Squares) regression is provided by the manufacturer as default configuration of the UV-visible spectrometer. We carried out a local calibration of the spectrometer based on nitrates and DOC concentrations analysed in the laboratory from daily manual sampling and sub-daily automatic sampling of flood events. TSS results are compared with 15 min turbidity records from a continuous turdidimeter (Ponsel). The results show a good correlation between laboratory data and spectrometer data both during basis flows periods and flood events. However, the local calibration gives better results than the global one. Nutrient fluxes estimates based on high and different low frequency time series (daily to monthly) are compared to discuss the implication for environmental monitoring strategies. Such

Coastal and river flood risk analyses for guiding economically optimal flood adaptation policies: a country-scale study for Mexico

Science.gov (United States)

Haer, Toon; Botzen, W. J. Wouter; van Roomen, Vincent; Connor, Harry; Zavala-Hidalgo, Jorge; Eilander, Dirk M.; Ward, Philip J.

2018-06-01

Many countries around the world face increasing impacts from flooding due to socio-economic development in flood-prone areas, which may be enhanced in intensity and frequency as a result of climate change. With increasing flood risk, it is becoming more important to be able to assess the costs and benefits of adaptation strategies. To guide the design of such strategies, policy makers need tools to prioritize where adaptation is needed and how much adaptation funds are required. In this country-scale study, we show how flood risk analyses can be used in cost-benefit analyses to prioritize investments in flood adaptation strategies in Mexico under future climate scenarios. Moreover, given the often limited availability of detailed local data for such analyses, we show how state-of-the-art global data and flood risk assessment models can be applied for a detailed assessment of optimal flood-protection strategies. Our results show that especially states along the Gulf of Mexico have considerable economic benefits from investments in adaptation that limit risks from both river and coastal floods, and that increased flood-protection standards are economically beneficial for many Mexican states. We discuss the sensitivity of our results to modelling uncertainties, the transferability of our modelling approach and policy implications. This article is part of the theme issue `Advances in risk assessment for climate change adaptation policy'.

On the performance of satellite precipitation products in riverine flood modeling: A review

Science.gov (United States)

Maggioni, Viviana; Massari, Christian

2018-03-01

This work is meant to summarize lessons learned on using satellite precipitation products for riverine flood modeling and to propose future directions in this field of research. Firstly, the most common satellite precipitation products (SPPs) during the Tropical Rainfall Measuring Mission (TRMM) and Global Precipitation Mission (GPM) eras are reviewed. Secondly, we discuss the main errors and uncertainty sources in these datasets that have the potential to affect streamflow and runoff model simulations. Thirdly, past studies that focused on using SPPs for predicting streamflow and runoff are analyzed. As the impact of floods depends not only on the characteristics of the flood itself, but also on the characteristics of the region (population density, land use, geophysical and climatic factors), a regional analysis is required to assess the performance of hydrologic models in monitoring and predicting floods. The performance of SPP-forced hydrological models was shown to largely depend on several factors, including precipitation type, seasonality, hydrological model formulation, topography. Across several basins around the world, the bias in SPPs was recognized as a major issue and bias correction methods of different complexity were shown to significantly reduce streamflow errors. Model re-calibration was also raised as a viable option to improve SPP-forced streamflow simulations, but caution is necessary when recalibrating models with SPP, which may result in unrealistic parameter values. From a general standpoint, there is significant potential for using satellite observations in flood forecasting, but the performance of SPP in hydrological modeling is still inadequate for operational purposes.

Development of realtime, handheld and portable flood distribution and water quality sensor based android smartphone

Science.gov (United States)

Rachmatika, Ratih; Adriyanto, Feri

2017-09-01

Current sensors to monitor water quality are made of manual sensors, which reported to have good performance. However, the major problems, which manual process to get the data. In addition, the data interpretation takes a long time. Due to these problems, a new approach needs to be introduced into the process to prevent a long data acquisition. Therefore, the SIAGA application was proposed. The application of SIAGA is divided into two main applications which are SIBA (Siaga Banjir) and SIAB (Siaga Air Bersih). We using WiFi system which is located at points along the flow of river.. The result can be monitored in the online application based on smartphone which is divided into the river water quality, potential sources of pollution and flood area. Each WiFi point is completed with the instruments which are divided into the sensors that can do the identification of parameters to determine the water quality such as temperature, pH, water level and turbidity. This instrument completed using GPS (Global Positioning System), Full Map menu. The instrument was succesfully monitoredthe flood distribution and water quality in Bengawan Solo river.

Taming global flood disasters. Lessons learned from Dutch experience

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Zevenbergen, C.; Herk, S.; Rijke, J.; Kabat, P.

2013-01-01

There is a growing international recognition that flood risk management in optima forma should be a programmed and flexible process of continuously improving management practices by active learning about the outcome of earlier and ongoing interventions and drivers of change. In the Netherlands, such

Taming global flood disasters : lessons learned from Dutch experience

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Zevenbergen, C.; Van Herk, S.; Rijke, J.S.; Kabat, P.; Bloemen, P.; Ashley, R.; Speers, A.; Gersonius, B.; Veenbeek, W.

2012-01-01

There is a growing international recognition that flood risk management in optima forma should be a programmed and flexible process of continuously improving management practices by active learning about the outcome of earlier and ongoing interventions and drivers of change. In the Netherlands, such

Looking for the best flash floods indicators in Mediterranean Region

Science.gov (United States)

Llasat, Maria-Carmen; Llasat-Botija, Montserrat; Turco, Marco

2010-05-01

Flash floods are a recurrent hazard in Mediterranean Region. From a global point of view, a distinction between two kinds of floods can be made (Llasat, 2009): a) Short-lived and strongly convective events (cases recorded between 2005 and 2006. This sample has been increased with some selected cases of the European project HYDRATE. Information from all the flash-floods recorded in Catalonia (Spain) since 1982, completed with data about population density and so on, has also been considered.

Flood Mapping and Flood Dynamics of the Mekong Delta: ENVISAT-ASAR-WSM Based Time Series Analyses

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Stefan Dech

2013-02-01

Full Text Available Satellite remote sensing is a valuable tool for monitoring flooding. Microwave sensors are especially appropriate instruments, as they allow the differentiation of inundated from non-inundated areas, regardless of levels of solar illumination or frequency of cloud cover in regions experiencing substantial rainy seasons. In the current study we present the longest synthetic aperture radar-based time series of flood and inundation information derived for the Mekong Delta that has been analyzed for this region so far. We employed overall 60 Envisat ASAR Wide Swath Mode data sets at a spatial resolution of 150 meters acquired during the years 2007–2011 to facilitate a thorough understanding of the flood regime in the Mekong Delta. The Mekong Delta in southern Vietnam comprises 13 provinces and is home to 18 million inhabitants. Extreme dry seasons from late December to May and wet seasons from June to December characterize people’s rural life. In this study, we show which areas of the delta are frequently affected by floods and which regions remain dry all year round. Furthermore, we present which areas are flooded at which frequency and elucidate the patterns of flood progression over the course of the rainy season. In this context, we also examine the impact of dykes on floodwater emergence and assess the relationship between retrieved flood occurrence patterns and land use. In addition, the advantages and shortcomings of ENVISAT ASAR-WSM based flood mapping are discussed. The results contribute to a comprehensive understanding of Mekong Delta flood dynamics in an environment where the flow regime is influenced by the Mekong River, overland water-flow, anthropogenic floodwater control, as well as the tides.

Analysis of flood inundation in ungauged basins based on multi-source remote sensing data.

Science.gov (United States)

Gao, Wei; Shen, Qiu; Zhou, Yuehua; Li, Xin

2018-02-09

Floods are among the most expensive natural hazards experienced in many places of the world and can result in heavy losses of life and economic damages. The objective of this study is to analyze flood inundation in ungauged basins by performing near-real-time detection with flood extent and depth based on multi-source remote sensing data. Via spatial distribution analysis of flood extent and depth in a time series, the inundation condition and the characteristics of flood disaster can be reflected. The results show that the multi-source remote sensing data can make up the lack of hydrological data in ungauged basins, which is helpful to reconstruct hydrological sequence; the combination of MODIS (moderate-resolution imaging spectroradiometer) surface reflectance productions and the DFO (Dartmouth Flood Observatory) flood database can achieve the macro-dynamic monitoring of the flood inundation in ungauged basins, and then the differential technique of high-resolution optical and microwave images before and after floods can be used to calculate flood extent to reflect spatial changes of inundation; the monitoring algorithm for the flood depth combining RS and GIS is simple and easy and can quickly calculate the depth with a known flood extent that is obtained from remote sensing images in ungauged basins. Relevant results can provide effective help for the disaster relief work performed by government departments.

Promoting health equity: WHO health inequality monitoring at global and national levels

Science.gov (United States)

Hosseinpoor, Ahmad Reza; Bergen, Nicole; Schlotheuber, Anne

2015-01-01

Background Health equity is a priority in the post-2015 sustainable development agenda and other major health initiatives. The World Health Organization (WHO) has a history of promoting actions to achieve equity in health, including efforts to encourage the practice of health inequality monitoring. Health inequality monitoring systems use disaggregated data to identify disadvantaged subgroups within populations and inform equity-oriented health policies, programs, and practices. Objective This paper provides an overview of a number of recent and current WHO initiatives related to health inequality monitoring at the global and/or national level. Design We outline the scope, content, and intended uses/application of the following: Health Equity Monitor database and theme page; State of inequality: reproductive, maternal, newborn, and child health report; Handbook on health inequality monitoring: with a focus on low- and middle-income countries; Health inequality monitoring eLearning module; Monitoring health inequality: an essential step for achieving health equity advocacy booklet and accompanying video series; and capacity building workshops conducted in WHO Member States and Regions. Conclusions The paper concludes by considering how the work of the WHO can be expanded upon to promote the establishment of sustainable and robust inequality monitoring systems across a variety of health topics among Member States and at the global level. PMID:26387506

Promoting health equity: WHO health inequality monitoring at global and national levels.

Science.gov (United States)

Hosseinpoor, Ahmad Reza; Bergen, Nicole; Schlotheuber, Anne

2015-01-01

Health equity is a priority in the post-2015 sustainable development agenda and other major health initiatives. The World Health Organization (WHO) has a history of promoting actions to achieve equity in health, including efforts to encourage the practice of health inequality monitoring. Health inequality monitoring systems use disaggregated data to identify disadvantaged subgroups within populations and inform equity-oriented health policies, programs, and practices. This paper provides an overview of a number of recent and current WHO initiatives related to health inequality monitoring at the global and/or national level. We outline the scope, content, and intended uses/application of the following: Health Equity Monitor database and theme page; State of inequality: reproductive, maternal, newborn, and child health report; Handbook on health inequality monitoring: with a focus on low- and middle-income countries; Health inequality monitoring eLearning module; Monitoring health inequality: an essential step for achieving health equity advocacy booklet and accompanying video series; and capacity building workshops conducted in WHO Member States and Regions. The paper concludes by considering how the work of the WHO can be expanded upon to promote the establishment of sustainable and robust inequality monitoring systems across a variety of health topics among Member States and at the global level.

Promoting health equity: WHO health inequality monitoring at global and national levels

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Ahmad Reza Hosseinpoor

2015-09-01

Full Text Available Background: Health equity is a priority in the post-2015 sustainable development agenda and other major health initiatives. The World Health Organization (WHO has a history of promoting actions to achieve equity in health, including efforts to encourage the practice of health inequality monitoring. Health inequality monitoring systems use disaggregated data to identify disadvantaged subgroups within populations and inform equity-oriented health policies, programs, and practices. Objective: This paper provides an overview of a number of recent and current WHO initiatives related to health inequality monitoring at the global and/or national level. Design: We outline the scope, content, and intended uses/application of the following: Health Equity Monitor database and theme page; State of inequality: reproductive, maternal, newborn, and child health report; Handbook on health inequality monitoring: with a focus on low- and middle-income countries; Health inequality monitoring eLearning module; Monitoring health inequality: an essential step for achieving health equity advocacy booklet and accompanying video series; and capacity building workshops conducted in WHO Member States and Regions. Conclusions: The paper concludes by considering how the work of the WHO can be expanded upon to promote the establishment of sustainable and robust inequality monitoring systems across a variety of health topics among Member States and at the global level.

Simulating Catchment Scale Afforestation for Mitigating Flooding

Science.gov (United States)

Barnes, M. S.; Bathurst, J. C.; Quinn, P. F.; Birkinshaw, S.

2016-12-01

After the 2013-14, and the more recent 2015-16, winter floods in the UK there were calls to 'forest the uplands' as a solution to reducing flood risk across the nation. However, the role of forests as a natural flood management practice remains highly controversial, due to a distinct lack of robust evidence into its effectiveness in reducing flood risk during extreme events. This project aims to improve the understanding of the impacts of upland afforestation on flood risk at the sub-catchment and full catchment scales. This will be achieved through an integrated fieldwork and modelling approach, with the use of a series of process based hydrological models to scale up and examine the effects forestry can have on flooding. Furthermore, there is a need to analyse the extent to which land management practices, catchment system engineering and the installation of runoff attenuation features (RAFs), such as engineered log jams, in headwater catchments can attenuate flood-wave movement, and potentially reduce downstream flood risk. Additionally, the proportion of a catchment or riparian reach that would need to be forested in order to achieve a significant impact on reducing downstream flooding will be defined. The consequential impacts of a corresponding reduction in agriculturally productive farmland and the potential decline of water resource availability will also be considered in order to safeguard the UK's food security and satisfy the global demand on water resources.

Leveraging Trillions of Pixels for Flood Mitigation Decisions Support in the Rio Salado Basin, Argentina

Science.gov (United States)

Sullivan, J.; Routh, D.; Tellman, B.; Doyle, C.; Tomlin, J. N.

2017-12-01

The Rio Salado River Basin in Argentina is an economically important region that generates 25-30 percent of Argentina's grain and meat production. Between 2000-2011, floods in the basin caused nearly US$4.5 billion in losses and affected 5.5 million people. With the goal of developing cost-efficient flood monitoring and prediction capabilities in the Rio Salado Basin to support decision making, Cloud to Street is developing satellite based analytics to cover information gaps and improve monitoring capacity. This talk will showcase the Flood Risk Dashboard developed by Cloud to Street to support monitoring and decision-making at the level of provincial and national water management agencies in the Rio Salado Watershed. The Dashboard is based on analyzing thousands of MODIS, Landsat, and Sentinel scenes in Google Earth Engine to reconstruct the spatial history of flooding in the basin. The tool, iteratively designed with the end-user, shows a history of floodable areas with specific return times, exposed land uses and population, precipitation hyetographs, and spatial and temporal flood trends in the basin. These trends are used to understand both the impact of past flood mitigation investments (i.e. wetland reconstruction) and identify shifting flood risks. Based on this experience, we will also describe best practices on making remote sensing "flood dashboards" for water agencies.

ANALYSIS OF RAINFALL PATTERN AND FLOOD INCIDENCES IN WARRI METROPOLIS, NIGERIA

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

R. Olanrewaju

2017-01-01

Full Text Available Climate change has led to changes in the known patterns of rainfall and other climatic variables as well as increase in the frequency and magnitude of natural disasters including floods in different parts of the world; and flood is indeed a global environmental issue that had destroyed lives and property amidst other untold hardships. The study examined rainfall characteristics in Warri metropolis for the past 30 years (1986-2015 vis-à-vis the flood situation in the metropolis; as well as the factors responsible and adaptation strategies to flood in the area. Dividing the study area into four zones after Sada (1977, the researchers collected rainfall data from the archives of Nigerian Meteorological Agency; 268 copies of questionnaire and oral interview were used. The result of the correlation analysis performed showed a negative relationship of -0.156 between rainfall and time (years, this implies that rainfall is decreasing over time. The trend line regression equation Y=243.75-0.4572X, confirms that rainfall in Warri Metropolis is decreasing at the rate of -0.45 per year. However, the p-value 0.412 is greater than 0.05, hence, the trend is not statistically significant at 95% level of confidence. It was discovered that rainfall, absence of drainage and poor urban planning practices (as factor 1 contributed 51.09% while overflowing of rivers, blocked/ poor drainage and untarred roads (as factor 2 contributed 44.10% variance to flood occurrence in the metropolis. Recommendations given included continual monitoring and study of rainfall characteristics and other climatic data and dissemination of such information for planning purposes; construction of integrated drainage system and river rechannelisation, legislation against dumping of refuse on roads and drainages; proper urban planning including implementation of the metropolitan urban drainage master plan. 

Identification of flood-rich and flood-poor periods in flood series

Science.gov (United States)

Mediero, Luis; Santillán, David; Garrote, Luis

2015-04-01

Recently, a general concern about non-stationarity of flood series has arisen, as changes in catchment response can be driven by several factors, such as climatic and land-use changes. Several studies to detect trends in flood series at either national or trans-national scales have been conducted. Trends are usually detected by the Mann-Kendall test. However, the results of this test depend on the starting and ending year of the series, which can lead to different results in terms of the period considered. The results can be conditioned to flood-poor and flood-rich periods located at the beginning or end of the series. A methodology to identify statistically significant flood-rich and flood-poor periods is developed, based on the comparison between the expected sampling variability of floods when stationarity is assumed and the observed variability of floods in a given series. The methodology is applied to a set of long series of annual maximum floods, peaks over threshold and counts of annual occurrences in peaks over threshold series observed in Spain in the period 1942-2009. Mediero et al. (2014) found a general decreasing trend in flood series in some parts of Spain that could be caused by a flood-rich period observed in 1950-1970, placed at the beginning of the flood series. The results of this study support the findings of Mediero et al. (2014), as a flood-rich period in 1950-1970 was identified in most of the selected sites. References: Mediero, L., Santillán, D., Garrote, L., Granados, A. Detection and attribution of trends in magnitude, frequency and timing of floods in Spain, Journal of Hydrology, 517, 1072-1088, 2014.

Probabilistic, meso-scale flood loss modelling

Science.gov (United States)

Kreibich, Heidi; Botto, Anna; Schröter, Kai; Merz, Bruno

2016-04-01

Flood risk analyses are an important basis for decisions on flood risk management and adaptation. However, such analyses are associated with significant uncertainty, even more if changes in risk due to global change are expected. Although uncertainty analysis and probabilistic approaches have received increased attention during the last years, they are still not standard practice for flood risk assessments and even more for flood loss modelling. State of the art in flood loss modelling is still the use of simple, deterministic approaches like stage-damage functions. Novel probabilistic, multi-variate flood loss models have been developed and validated on the micro-scale using a data-mining approach, namely bagging decision trees (Merz et al. 2013). In this presentation we demonstrate and evaluate the upscaling of the approach to the meso-scale, namely on the basis of land-use units. The model is applied in 19 municipalities which were affected during the 2002 flood by the River Mulde in Saxony, Germany (Botto et al. submitted). The application of bagging decision tree based loss models provide a probability distribution of estimated loss per municipality. Validation is undertaken on the one hand via a comparison with eight deterministic loss models including stage-damage functions as well as multi-variate models. On the other hand the results are compared with official loss data provided by the Saxon Relief Bank (SAB). The results show, that uncertainties of loss estimation remain high. Thus, the significant advantage of this probabilistic flood loss estimation approach is that it inherently provides quantitative information about the uncertainty of the prediction. References: Merz, B.; Kreibich, H.; Lall, U. (2013): Multi-variate flood damage assessment: a tree-based data-mining approach. NHESS, 13(1), 53-64. Botto A, Kreibich H, Merz B, Schröter K (submitted) Probabilistic, multi-variable flood loss modelling on the meso-scale with BT-FLEMO. Risk Analysis.

The impact of bathymetry input on flood simulations

Science.gov (United States)

Khanam, M.; Cohen, S.

2017-12-01

Flood prediction and mitigation systems are inevitable for improving public safety and community resilience all over the worldwide. Hydraulic simulations of flood events are becoming an increasingly efficient tool for studying and predicting flood events and susceptibility. A consistent limitation of hydraulic simulations of riverine dynamics is the lack of information about river bathymetry as most terrain data record water surface elevation. The impact of this limitation on the accuracy on hydraulic simulations of flood has not been well studies over a large range of flood magnitude and modeling frameworks. Advancing our understanding of this topic is timely given emerging national and global efforts for developing automated flood predictions systems (e.g. NOAA National Water Center). Here we study the response of flood simulation to the incorporation of different bathymetry and floodplain surveillance source. Different hydraulic models are compared, Mike-Flood, a 2D hydrodynamic model, and GSSHA, a hydrology/hydraulics model. We test a hypothesis that the impact of inclusion/exclusion of bathymetry data on hydraulic model results will vary in its magnitude as a function of river size. This will allow researcher and stake holders more accurate predictions of flood events providing useful information that will help local communities in a vulnerable flood zone to mitigate flood hazards. Also, it will help to evaluate the accuracy and efficiency of different modeling frameworks and gage their dependency on detailed bathymetry input data.

Digital technologies in support of flood resilience: A case study for Nepal

OpenAIRE

Liu, W.; McCallum, I.; See, L.; Dugar, S.; Laso-Bayas, J.C.

2016-01-01

This paper presents ongoing efforts to support flood resilience in the Karnali basin in Nepal through the provision of different forms of digital technology. Flood Risk Geo-Wiki is an online visualization and crowdsourcing tool, which has been adapted to display flood risk maps at the global scale as well as information of relevance to planners and the community at the local level. Community-based flood risk maps, which have traditionally been drawn on paper, are being digitized and integrate...

Utilizing NASA Earth Observations to Enhance Flood Impact Products and Mitigation in the Lower Mekong Water Basin

Science.gov (United States)

Doyle, C.; Gao, M.; Spruce, J.; Bolten, J. D.; Weber, S.

2014-12-01

This presentation discusses results of a project to develop a near real time flood monitoring capability for the Lower Mekong Water Basin (LMB), the largest river basin in Southeast Asia and home to more than sixty million people. The region has seen rapid population growth and socio-economic development, fueling unsustainable deforestation, agricultural expansion, and stream-flow regulation. The basin supports substantial rice farming and other agrarian activities, which heavily depend upon seasonal flooding. But, floods due to typhoons and other severe weather events can result in disasters that cost millions of dollars and cause hardships to millions of people. This study uses near real time and historical Aqua and Terra MODIS 250-m resolution Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI) products to map flood and drought impact within the LMB. In doing so, NDVI change products are derived by comparing from NDVI during the wet season to a baseline NDVI from the dry season. The method records flood events, which cause drastic decreases in NDVI compared to non-flooded conditions. NDVI change product computation was automated for updating a near real-time system, as part of the Committee on Earth Observing Satellites Disaster Risk Management Observation Strategy. The system is a web-based 'Flood Dashboard that will showcase MODIS flood monitoring products, along with other flood mapping and weather data products. This flood dashboard enables end-users to view and assess a variety of geospatial data to monitor floods and flood impacts in near real-time, as well provides a platform for further data aggregation for flood prediction modeling and post-event assessment.

Flood characteristics of the Haor area in Bangladesh

Science.gov (United States)

Suman, Asadusjjaman; Bhattacharya, Biswa

2013-04-01

In recent years the world has experienced deaths, large-scale displacement of people, billions of Euros of economic damage, mental stress and ecosystem impacts due to flooding. Global changes (climate change, population and economic growth, and urbanisation) are exacerbating the severity of flooding. The 2010 floods in Pakistan and the 2011 floods in Australia and Thailand demonstrate the need for concerted action in the face of global societal and environmental changes to strengthen resilience against flooding. Bangladesh is a country, which is frequently suffering from flooding. The current research is conducted in the framework of a project, which focuses on the flooding issues in the Haor region in the north-east of Bangladesh. A haor is a saucer-shaped depression, which is used during the dry period (December to mid-May) for agriculture and as a fishery during the wet period (June-November), and thereby presents a very interesting socio-economic perspective of flood risk management. Pre-monsoon flooding till mid-May causes agricultural loss and lot of distress whereas monsoon flooding brings benefits. The area is bordering India, thereby presenting trans-boundary issues as well, and is fed by some flashy Indian catchments. The area is drained mainly through the Surma-Kushiyara river system. The terrain generally is flat and the flashy characteristics die out within a short distance from the border. Limited studies on the region, particularly with the help of numerical models, have been carried out in the past. Therefore, an objective of the current research was to set up numerical models capable of reasonably emulating the physical system. Such models could, for example, associate different gauges to the spatio-temporal variation of hydrodynamic variables and help in carrying out a systemic study on the impact of climate changes. A 1D2D model, with one-dimensional model for the rivers (based on MIKE 11 modelling tool from Danish Hydraulic Institute) and a two

Floods and droughts: friends or foes?

Science.gov (United States)

Prudhomme, Christel

2017-04-01

Water hazards are some of the biggest threats to lives and livelihoods globally, causing serious damages to society and infrastructure. But floods and droughts are an essential part of the hydrological regime that ensures fundamental ecosystem functions, providing natural ways to bring in nutrients, flush out pollutants and enabling soils, rivers and lakes natural biodiversity to thrive. Traditionally, floods and droughts are too often considered separately, with scientific advance in process understanding, modelling, statistical characterisation and impact assessment are often done independently, possibly delaying the development of innovative methods that could be applied to both. This talk will review some of the key characteristics of floods and droughts, highlighting differences and commonalties, losses and benefits, with the aim of identifying future key research challenges faced by both current and next generation of hydrologists.

Riparian plant community responses to increased flooding: a meta-analysis.

Science.gov (United States)

Garssen, Annemarie G; Baattrup-Pedersen, Annette; Voesenek, Laurentius A C J; Verhoeven, Jos T A; Soons, Merel B

2015-08-01

A future higher risk of severe flooding of streams and rivers has been projected to change riparian plant community composition and species richness, but the extent and direction of the expected change remain uncertain. We conducted a meta-analysis to synthesize globally available experimental evidence and assess the effects of increased flooding on (1) riparian adult plant and seedling survival, (2) riparian plant biomass and (3) riparian plant species composition and richness. We evaluated which plant traits are of key importance for the response of riparian plant species to flooding. We identified and analysed 53 papers from ISI Web of Knowledge which presented quantitative experimental results on flooding treatments and corresponding control situations. Our meta-analysis demonstrated how longer duration of flooding, greater depth of flooding and, particularly, their combination reduce seedling survival of most riparian species. Plant height above water level, ability to elongate shoots and plasticity in root porosity were decisive for adult plant survival and growth during longer periods of flooding. Both 'quiescence' and 'escape' proved to be successful strategies promoting riparian plant survival, which was reflected in the wide variation in survival (full range between 0 and 100%) under fully submerged conditions, while plants that protrude above the water level (>20 cm) almost all survive. Our survey confirmed that the projected increase in the duration and depth of flooding periods is sufficient to result in species shifts. These shifts may lead to increased or decreased riparian species richness depending on the nutrient, climatic and hydrological status of the catchment. Species richness was generally reduced at flooded sites in nutrient-rich catchments and sites that previously experienced relatively stable hydrographs (e.g. rain-fed lowland streams). Species richness usually increased at sites in desert and semi-arid climate regions (e.g. intermittent

Increased Rotavirus Prevalence in Diarrheal Outbreak Precipitated by Localized Flooding, Solomon Islands, 2014.

Science.gov (United States)

Jones, Forrest K; Ko, Albert I; Becha, Chris; Joshua, Cynthia; Musto, Jennie; Thomas, Sarah; Ronsse, Axelle; Kirkwood, Carl D; Sio, Alison; Aumua, Audrey; Nilles, Eric J

2016-05-01

Flooding on 1 of the Solomon Islands precipitated a nationwide epidemic of diarrhea that spread to regions unaffected by flooding and caused >6,000 cases and 27 deaths. Rotavirus was identified in 38% of case-patients tested in the city with the most flooding. Outbreak potential related to weather reinforces the need for global rotavirus vaccination.

Recent SST trends and Flood Disasters in Brazil

Science.gov (United States)

Yamashiki, Y.; Behera, S. K.; Inoue, S.; Netrananda, S.; Silva, R. D.; Takara, K. T.; Yamagata, T.

2010-12-01

We analyzed recent variations in the sea surface temperature (SST) anomalies of Pacific and Atlantic Oceans to understand their roles in extreme discharge of Amazon River Basin. In general, higher than monthly average discharge appears when La Niña condition forms and lower than monthly average discharge appears when El Niño condition forms. We also investigated the relationship between SST anomalies and recent floods in Brazil during the period of 1980-2010. Most severe floods (e.g. 2003 and 2010 Rio de Janeiro-São Paulo Flood) in austral summer occurred when El Niño Modoki appears in the Pacific Ocean. In addition, warm waters in tropical South Atlantic Ocean between American and African Coast also helped the moisture convergence to the affected region. Floods in some other locations (for example, Itaipava flood occurred in Maranhao State in 2008) occurred when a La Niña Modoki appeared in Pacific Ocean. These flood disasters in Brazil associated with climate phenomena may increase due to warmer SST trend under the global warming stress.

CHANGING FLOOD FREQUENCY IN SCOTLAND: IMPLICATIONS FOR CHANNEL GEOMORPHOLOGY, ECOLOGY AND MANAGEMENT

OpenAIRE

Thompson, Fiona Hilary

2017-01-01

The effect of climate on the fluvial system has long been investigated due the significant impact it can have on a river’s hydrological regime and fluvial processes. In recent years this interest has increased as global changes in climate are expected to bring more frequent high magnitude flood events globally and to North West Europe in particular. Despite the knowledge that the frequency and magnitude of floods is to increase, less is known about the geomorphological implicat...

The potential of crowdsourcing and mobile technology to support flood disaster risk reduction

Science.gov (United States)

See, Linda; McCallum, Ian; Liu, Wei; Mechler, Reinhard; Keating, Adriana; Hochrainer-Stigler, Stefan; Mochizuki, Junko; Fritz, Steffen; Dugar, Sumit; Arestegui, Michael; Szoenyi, Michael; Laso-Bayas, Juan-Carlos; Burek, Peter; French, Adam; Moorthy, Inian

2016-04-01

The last decade has seen a rise in citizen science and crowdsourcing for carrying out a variety of tasks across a number of different fields, most notably the collection of data such as the identification of species (e.g. eBird and iNaturalist) and the classification of images (e.g. Galaxy Zoo and Geo-Wiki). Combining human computing with the proliferation of mobile technology has resulted in vast amounts of geo-located data that have considerable value across multiple domains including flood disaster risk reduction. Crowdsourcing technologies, in the form of online mapping, are now being utilized to great effect in post-disaster mapping and relief efforts, e.g. the activities of Humanitarian OpenStreetMap, complementing official channels of relief (e.g. Haiti, Nepal and New York). Disaster event monitoring efforts have been further complemented with the use of social media (e.g. twitter for earthquakes, flood monitoring, and fire detection). Much of the activity in this area has focused on ex-post emergency management while there is considerable potential for utilizing crowdsourcing and mobile technology for vulnerability assessment, early warning and to bolster resilience to flood events. This paper examines the use of crowdsourcing and mobile technology for measuring and monitoring flood hazards, exposure to floods, and vulnerability, drawing upon examples from the literature and ongoing projects on flooding and food security at IIASA.

Citizen Science into Action - Robust Data with Affordable Technologies for Flood Risks Management in the Himalayas

Science.gov (United States)

Pandeya, B.; Uprety, M.; Paul, J. D.; Dugar, S.; Buytaert, W.

2017-12-01

With a robust and affordable monitoring system, a wealth of hydrological data can be generated which is fundamental to predict flood risks more accurately. Since the Himalayan region is characterized by data deficiency and unpredictable hydrological behaviour, a locally based participatory monitoring system is a necessity to deal with frequently occurring flooding incidents. A gap in hydrological data is the main bottleneck for establishing any effective flood early warning system. Therefore, an alternative and affordable technical solution can only overcome the situation and support flood risks management activities in the region. In coordination with local people, government authorities and NGOs, we have established a citizen science monitoring system, in which we tested two types of low-cost sensors, ultrasound and LiDAR, in the Karnali river basin of Nepal. The results confirm the robustness of sensor data when compared to conventional radar system based monitoring data. Additionally, our findings also confirmed that the ultrasound sensors are only useful to small rivers whereas the LiDAR sensors are suitable to large river basins with highly variable local climatic conditions. Since the collected sensor data can be directly used in operational flood early warning system in the basin, an opportunity has been created for integrating both affordable technology and citizen science into existing hydrological monitoring practice. Finally, a successful integration could become a testament for upscaling the practice and building flood risk resilient communities in the region.

Living behind dikes : mimicking flooding experiences

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Zaalberg, R.; Midden, C.J.H.

2013-01-01

Delta areas like the Netherlands are threatened by global climate change. Awareness is, however, rather low. Our research objective was to investigate whether coping responses to flooding risks could be enhanced in a virtual environment (VE). A laboratory experiment was conducted in which

Hydrochemical aspects of the Aue pit flooding

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Meyer, J.; Jenk, U.; Schuppan, W.; Knappik, R.

1998-01-01

WISMUT is conducting controlled flooding of underground mines at the Schlema-Alberoda and Poehla sites. Flooding of the Poehla mine lasted from January 1992 through September 1995. Flooding at the Niederschlema-Alberoda site began in July 1990 and will continue to approximately 2002. In mid-1998 the flood level had reached the - 420 m level which is about 1,400 m above the lowest mine level. Only ground waters with low mineral and pollutant content are used for flooding purposes. Typically, the flooding process results in elevated levels of mineral salts and of uranium, radium, arsenic, iron, and manganese in flooding waters. However, the mobilised part of these contaminants represents only a small fraction of potential concentrations contained in the surrounding rock. Geochemical and hydrochemical conditions at both mines are characterised by the presence of carbonate buffers and by neutral pH and intermediate to low Eh. Decrease due to oxidation of sulphides in the long term is unlikely. Environmentally relevant metals in flooding waters may be dissolved, colloidal, or suspended solids with uranium present as uranyl carbonate complexes. Intensity of mobilisation is primarily a function of kinetic processes. Post flooding conditions at the Poehla subsite exhibit specific hydrochemical phenomena such as extremely reduced SO 4 concentrations and an increase in Ra concentrations over time. Continued flood monitoring will provide the basis for more in-depth interpretation and prognosis of contaminant mobilisation. Current investigations focus on technically feasible in situ control of mine flooding at the Schlema-Alberoda site to reduce contaminant mobilisation. At both sites water treatment plants are either on stream or under construction. (orig.)

Interpreting the impact of flood forecasts by combining policy analysis studies and flood defence

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Slomp Robert

2016-01-01

Full Text Available Flood forecasting is necessary to save lives and reduce damages. Reducing damages is important to save livelihoods and to reduce the recovery time. Flood alerts should contain expected time of the event, location and extent of the event. A flood alert is not only one message but part of a rehearsed flow of information using multiple canals. First people have to accept the fact that there might be a threat and what the threat is about. People need a reference to understand the situation and be aware of possible measures they can take to assure their own safety and reduce damages. Information to the general public has to be consistent with the information used by emergency services and has to be very clear about consequences and context of possible measures (as shelter in place or preventive evacuation. Emergency services should monitor how the public is responding to adapt their communication en operation during a crisis. Flood warnings and emergency services are often coordinated by different government organisations. This is an extra handicap for having consistent information out on time for people to use. In an information based society, where everyone has twitter, email and a camera, public organisations may have to trust the public more and send out the correct information as it comes in. In the Netherlands Rijkswaterstaat, the National Water Authority and the National Public Works Department, is responsible for or involved in forecasting in case of floods, policy studies on flood risk, policy studies on maintenance, assessment and design of flood defences, elaborating rules and regulations for flood defences, advice on crisis management to the national government and for maintaining the main infrastructure in the Netherlands (high ways and water ways. The Water Management Center in the Netherlands (WMCN has developed a number of models to provide flood forecasts. WMCN is run for and by all managers of flood defences and is hosted by

Measuring coverage in MNCH: challenges and opportunities in the selection of coverage indicators for global monitoring.

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Jennifer Harris Requejo

Full Text Available Global monitoring of intervention coverage is a cornerstone of international efforts to improve reproductive, maternal, newborn, and child health. In this review, we examine the process and implications of selecting a core set of coverage indicators for global monitoring, using as examples the processes used by the Countdown to 2015 for Maternal, Newborn and Child Survival and the Commission on Accountability for Women's and Children's Health. We describe how the generation of data for global monitoring involves five iterative steps: development of standard indicator definitions and measurement approaches to ensure comparability across countries; collection of high-quality data at the country level; compilation of country data at the global level; organization of global databases; and rounds of data quality checking. Regular and rigorous technical review processes that involve high-level decision makers and experts familiar with indicator measurement are needed to maximize uptake and to ensure that indicators used for global monitoring are selected on the basis of available evidence of intervention effectiveness, feasibility of measurement, and data availability as well as programmatic relevance. Experience from recent initiatives illustrates the challenges of striking this balance as well as strategies for reducing the tensions inherent in the indicator selection process. We conclude that more attention and continued investment need to be directed to global monitoring, to support both the process of global database development and the selection of sets of coverage indicators to promote accountability. The stakes are high, because these indicators can drive policy and program development at the country and global level, and ultimately impact the health of women and children and the communities where they live.

The Generation of a Stochastic Flood Event Catalogue for Continental USA

Science.gov (United States)

Quinn, N.; Wing, O.; Smith, A.; Sampson, C. C.; Neal, J. C.; Bates, P. D.

2017-12-01

Recent advances in the acquisition of spatiotemporal environmental data and improvements in computational capabilities has enabled the generation of large scale, even global, flood hazard layers which serve as a critical decision-making tool for a range of end users. However, these datasets are designed to indicate only the probability and depth of inundation at a given location and are unable to describe the likelihood of concurrent flooding across multiple sites.Recent research has highlighted that although the estimation of large, widespread flood events is of great value to flood mitigation and insurance industries, to date it has been difficult to deal with this spatial dependence structure in flood risk over relatively large scales. Many existing approaches have been restricted to empirical estimates of risk based on historic events, limiting their capability of assessing risk over the full range of plausible scenarios. Therefore, this research utilises a recently developed model-based approach to describe the multisite joint distribution of extreme river flows across continental USA river gauges. Given an extreme event at a site, the model characterises the likelihood neighbouring sites are also impacted. This information is used to simulate an ensemble of plausible synthetic extreme event footprints from which flood depths are extracted from an existing global flood hazard catalogue. Expected economic losses are then estimated by overlaying flood depths with national datasets defining asset locations, characteristics and depth damage functions. The ability of this approach to quantify probabilistic economic risk and rare threshold exceeding events is expected to be of value to those interested in the flood mitigation and insurance sectors.This work describes the methodological steps taken to create the flood loss catalogue over a national scale; highlights the uncertainty in the expected annual economic vulnerability within the USA from extreme river flows

Identification and classification of Serbia's historic floods

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Prohaska Stevan

2009-01-01

Full Text Available River flooding in Serbia is a natural phenomenon which largely exceeds the scope of water management and hydraulic engineering, and has considerable impact on the development of Serbian society. Today, the importance and value of areas threatened by floods are among the key considerations of sustainable development. As a result, flood protection techniques and procedures need to be continually refined and updated, following innovations in the fields of science and technology. Knowledge of high flows is key for sizing hydraulic structures and for gauging the cost-effectiveness and safety of the component structures of flood protection systems. However, sizing of hydraulic structures based on computed high flows does not ensure absolute safety; there is a residual flood risk and a risk of structural failure, if a flood exceeds computed levels. In hydrological practice, such floods are often referred to as historic/loads. The goal of this paper is to present a calculation procedure for the objective identification of historic floods, using long, multiple-year series of data on high flows of natural watercourses in Serbia. At its current stage of development, the calculation procedure is based on maximum annual discharges recorded at key monitoring stations of the Hydro-Meteorological Service of Serbia (HMS Serbia. When applied, the procedure results in the identification of specific historic maximum stages/floods (if any at all gauge sites included in the analysis. The probabilistic theory is then applied to assess the statistical significance of each identified historic flood and to classify the historic flood, as appropriate. At the end of the paper, the results of the applied methodology are shown in tabular and graphic form for various Serbian rivers. All identified historic floods are ranked based on their probability of occurrence (i.e., return period.

Monitoring storm tide and flooding from Hurricane Matthew along the Atlantic coast of the United States, October 2016

Science.gov (United States)

Frantz, Eric R.; Byrne,, Michael L.; Caldwell, Andral W.; Harden, Stephen L.

2017-11-02

IntroductionHurricane Matthew moved adjacent to the coasts of Florida, Georgia, South Carolina, and North Carolina. The hurricane made landfall once near McClellanville, South Carolina, on October 8, 2016, as a Category 1 hurricane on the Saffir-Simpson Hurricane Wind Scale. The U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) deployed a temporary monitoring network of storm-tide sensors at 284 sites along the Atlantic coast from Florida to North Carolina to record the timing, areal extent, and magnitude of hurricane storm tide and coastal flooding generated by Hurricane Matthew. Storm tide, as defined by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, is the water-level rise generated by a combination of storm surge and astronomical tide during a coastal storm.The deployment for Hurricane Matthew was the largest deployment of storm-tide sensors in USGS history and was completed as part of a coordinated Federal emergency response as outlined by the Stafford Act (Public Law 92–288, 42 U.S.C. 5121–5207) under a directed mission assignment by the Federal Emergency Management Agency. In total, 543 high-water marks (HWMs) also were collected after Hurricane Matthew, and this was the second largest HWM recovery effort in USGS history after Hurricane Sandy in 2012.During the hurricane, real-time water-level data collected at temporary rapid deployment gages (RDGs) and long-term USGS streamgage stations were relayed immediately for display on the USGS Flood Event Viewer (https://stn.wim.usgs.gov/FEV/#MatthewOctober2016). These data provided emergency managers and responders with critical information for tracking flood-effected areas and directing assistance to effected communities. Data collected from this hurricane can be used to calibrate and evaluate the performance of storm-tide models for maximum and incremental water level and flood extent, and the site-specific effects of storm tide on natural and anthropogenic features of the environment.

IT infrastructure enabling open access for flood risk preparedness in South Africa

CSIR Research Space (South Africa)

Van Zyl, TL

2009-05-01

Full Text Available The paper focuses on the information technology infrastructure required for the evaluation and monitoring of risk relating to floods in South Africa. It may be argued that in the context of developing countries, flood preparedness is more valuable...

Estimated flood-inundation maps for Cowskin Creek in western Wichita, Kansas

Science.gov (United States)

Studley, Seth E.

2003-01-01

The October 31, 1998, flood on Cowskin Creek in western Wichita, Kansas, caused millions of dollars in damages. Emergency management personnel and flood mitigation teams had difficulty in efficiently identifying areas affected by the flooding, and no warning was given to residents because flood-inundation information was not available. To provide detailed information about future flooding on Cowskin Creek, high-resolution estimated flood-inundation maps were developed using geographic information system technology and advanced hydraulic analysis. Two-foot-interval land-surface elevation data from a 1996 flood insurance study were used to create a three-dimensional topographic representation of the study area for hydraulic analysis. The data computed from the hydraulic analyses were converted into geographic information system format with software from the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers' Hydrologic Engineering Center. The results were overlaid on the three-dimensional topographic representation of the study area to produce maps of estimated flood-inundation areas and estimated depths of water in the inundated areas for 1-foot increments on the basis of stream stage at an index streamflow-gaging station. A Web site (http://ks.water.usgs.gov/Kansas/cowskin.floodwatch) was developed to provide the public with information pertaining to flooding in the study area. The Web site shows graphs of the real-time streamflow data for U.S. Geological Survey gaging stations in the area and monitors the National Weather Service Arkansas-Red Basin River Forecast Center for Cowskin Creek flood-forecast information. When a flood is forecast for the Cowskin Creek Basin, an estimated flood-inundation map is displayed for the stream stage closest to the National Weather Service's forecasted peak stage. Users of the Web site are able to view the estimated flood-inundation maps for selected stages at any time and to access information about this report and about flooding in general. Flood

A global change data base using Thematic Mapper data - Earth Monitoring Educational System (EMES)

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D'Antoni, Hector L.; Peterson, David L.

1992-01-01

Some of the main directions in creating an education program in earth system science aimed at combining top science and technology with high academic performance are presented. The creation of an Earth Monitoring Educational System (EMES) integrated with the research interests of the NASA Ames Research Center and one or more universities is proposed. Based on the integration of a global network of cooperators to build a global data base for assessments of global change, EMES would promote degrees at all levels in global ecology at associated universities and colleges, and extracurricular courses for multilevel audiences. EMES objectives are to: train specialists; establish a tradition of solving regional problems concerning global change in a systemic manner, using remote sensing technology as the monitoring tool; and transfer knowledge on global change to the national and world communities. South America is proposed as the pilot continent for the project.

Nuisance Flooding and Relative Sea-Level Rise: the Importance of Present-Day Land Motion.

Science.gov (United States)

Karegar, Makan A; Dixon, Timothy H; Malservisi, Rocco; Kusche, Jürgen; Engelhart, Simon E

2017-09-11

Sea-level rise is beginning to cause increased inundation of many low-lying coastal areas. While most of Earth's coastal areas are at risk, areas that will be affected first are characterized by several additional factors. These include regional oceanographic and meteorological effects and/or land subsidence that cause relative sea level to rise faster than the global average. For catastrophic coastal flooding, when wind-driven storm surge inundates large areas, the relative contribution of sea-level rise to the frequency of these events is difficult to evaluate. For small scale "nuisance flooding," often associated with high tides, recent increases in frequency are more clearly linked to sea-level rise and global warming. While both types of flooding are likely to increase in the future, only nuisance flooding is an early indicator of areas that will eventually experience increased catastrophic flooding and land loss. Here we assess the frequency and location of nuisance flooding along the eastern seaboard of North America. We show that vertical land motion induced by recent anthropogenic activity and glacial isostatic adjustment are contributing factors for increased nuisance flooding. Our results have implications for flood susceptibility, forecasting and mitigation, including management of groundwater extraction from coastal aquifers.

Monitoring flooding and vegetation on seasonally inundated floodplains with multifrequency polarimetric synthetic aperture radar

Science.gov (United States)

Hess, Laura Lorraine

The ability of synthetic aperture radar to detect flooding and vegetation structure was evaluated for three seasonally inundated floodplain sites supporting a broad variety of wetland and upland vegetation types: two reaches of the Solimoes floodplain in the central Amazon, and the Magela Creek floodplain in Northern Territory, Australia. For each site, C- and L-band polarimetric Shuttle Imaging Radar-C (SIR-C) data was obtained at both high- and low-water stages. Inundation status and vegetation structure were documented simultaneous with the SIR-C acquisitions using low-altitude videography and ground measurements. SIR-C images were classified into cover states defined by vegetation physiognomy and presence of standing water, using a decision-tree model with backscattering coefficients at HH, VV, and HV polarizations as input variables. Classification accuracy was assessed using user's accuracy, producer's accuracy, and kappa coefficient for a test population of pixels. At all sites, both C- and L-band were necessary to accurately classify cover types with two dates. HH polarization was most. useful for distinguishing flooded from non-flooded vegetation (C-HH for macrophyte versus pasture, L-HH for flooded versus non-flooded forest), and cross-polarized L-band data provided the best separation between woody and non-woody vegetation. Increases in L-HH backscattering due to flooding were on the order of 3--4 dB for closed-canopy varzea and igapo forest, and 4--7 dB, for open Melaleuca woodland. The broad range of physiognomies and stand structures found in both herbaceous and woody wetland communities, combined with the variation in the amount of emergent canopy caused by water level fluctuations and phenologic changes, resulted in a large range in backscattering characteristics of wetland communities both within and between sites. High accuracies cannot be achieved for these communities using single-date, single-band, single-polarization data, particularly in the

Overview of Global Monitoring of Terrestrial Chlorophyll Fluorescence from Space

Science.gov (United States)

Guanter, Luis; Zhang, Yongguang; Kohler, Philipp; Walther, Sophia; Frankenberg, Christian; Joiner, Joanna

2016-01-01

Despite the critical importance of photosynthesis for the Earth system, understanding how it is influenced by factors such as climate variability, disturbance history, and water or nutrient availability remains a challenge because of the complex interactions and the lack of GPP measurements at various temporal and spatial scales. Space observations of the sun-induced chlorophyll fluorescence (SIF) electromagnetic signal emitted by plants in the 650-850nm spectral range hold the promise of providing a new view of vegetation photosynthesis on a global basis. Global retrievals of SIF from space have recently been achieved from a number of spaceborne spectrometers originally intended for atmospheric research. Despite not having been designed for land applications, such instruments have turned out to provide the necessary spectral and radiometric sensitivity for SIF retrieval from space. The first global measurements of SIF were achieved in 2011 from spectra acquired by the Japanese GOSAT mission launched in 2009. The retrieval takes advantage of the high spectral resolution provided by GOSATs Fourier Transform Spectrometer (FTS) which allows the evaluation of the in-filling of solar Fraunhofer lines by SIF. Unfortunately, GOSAT only provides a sparse spatial sampling with individual soundings separated by several hundred kilometers. Complementary, the Global Ozone Monitoring Experiment-2 (GOME-2) instruments onboard MetOp-A and MetOp-B enable SIF retrievals since 2007 with a continuous and global spatial coverage. GOME-2 measures in the red and near-infrared (NIR) spectral regions with a spectral resolution of 0.5 nm and a pixel size of up to 40x40 km2. Most recently, another global and spatially continuous data set of SIF retrievals at 740 nm spanning the 2003-2012 time frame has been produced from ENVISATSCIAMACHY. This observational scenario has been completed by the first fluorescence data from the NASA-JPL OCO-2 mission (launched in July 2014) and the upcoming

September 2013 Storm and Flood Assessment Report

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Walterscheid, J. C. [Los Alamos National Lab. (LANL), Los Alamos, NM (United States)

2015-12-21

Between September 10 and 17, 2013, New Mexico and Colorado received a historically large amount of precipitation (Figure 1). This report assesses the damage caused by flooding along with estimated costs to repair the damage at Los Alamos National Laboratory (the Laboratory) on the Pajarito Plateau. Los Alamos County, New Mexico, received between 200% and 600% of the normal precipitation for this time period (Figure 2), and the Laboratory received approximately 450% percent of its average precipitation for September (Figure 3). As a result, the Laboratory was inundated with rain, including the extremely large, greater-than-1000-yr return period event that occurred between September 12 and 13 (Table 1). With saturated antecedent soil conditions from the September 10 storm, when the September 12 to September 13 storm hit, the flooding was disastrous to the Laboratory’s environmental infrastructure, including access roads, gage stations, watershed controls, control measures installed under the National Pollutant Discharge Elimination System Permit (hereafter, the Individual Permit), and groundwater monitoring wells (Figures 4 through 21). From September 16 to October 1, 2013, the Laboratory completed field assessments of environmental infrastructure and generated descriptions and estimates of the damage, which are presented in spreadsheets in Attachments 1 to 4 of this report. Section 2 of this report contains damage assessments by watershed, including access roads, gage stations, watershed controls, and control measures installed under the Individual Permit. Section 3 contains damage assessments of monitoring wells by the groundwater monitoring groups as established in the Interim Facility-Wide Groundwater Monitoring Plan for Monitoring Year 2014. Section 4 addresses damage and loss of automated samplers. Section 5 addresses sediment sampling needs, and Section 6 is the summary of estimated recovery costs from the significant rain and flooding during September 2013.

Establishing a rainfall threshold for flash flood warnings based on the DFFG method in Yunnan province, China

Science.gov (United States)

Ma, M.; Wang, H.; Chen, Y.; Tang, G.; Hong, Z.; Zhang, K.; Hong, Y.

2017-12-01

Flash floods, one of the deadliest natural hazards worldwide due to their multidisciplinary nature, rank highly in terms of heavy damage and casualties. Such as in the United States, flash flood is the No.1 cause of death and the No. 2 most deadly weather-related hazard among all storm-related hazards, with approximately 100 lives lost each year. According to China Floods and Droughts Disasters Bullet in 2015 (http://www.mwr.gov.cn/zwzc/hygb/zgshzhgb), about 935 deaths per year on average were caused by flash floods from 2000 to 2015, accounting for 73 % of the fatalities due to floods. Therefore, significant efforts have been made toward understanding flash flood processes as well as modeling and forecasting them, it still remains challenging because of their short response time and limited monitoring capacity. This study advances the use of high-resolution Global Precipitation Measurement forecasts (GPMs), disaster data obtained from the government officials in 2011 and 2016, and the improved Distributed Flash Flood Guidance (DFFG) method combining the Distributed Hydrologic Model and Soil Conservation Service Curve Numbers. The objectives of this paper are (1) to examines changes in flash flood occurrence, (2) to estimate the effect of the rainfall spatial variability ,(2) to improve the lead time in flash floods warning and get the rainfall threshold, (3) to assess the DFFG method applicability in Dongchuan catchments, and (4) to yield the probabilistic information about the forecast hydrologic response that accounts for the locational uncertainties of the GPMs. Results indicate: (1) flash flood occurrence increased in the study region, (2) the occurrence of predicted flash floods show high sensitivity to total infiltration and soil water content, (3) the DFFG method is generally capable of making accurate predictions of flash flood events in terms of their locations and time of occurrence, and (4) the accumulative rainfall over a certain time span is an

Coastal and Riverine Flood Forecast Model powered by ADCIRC

Science.gov (United States)

Khalid, A.; Ferreira, C.

2017-12-01

Coastal flooding is becoming a major threat to increased population in the coastal areas. To protect coastal communities from tropical storms & hurricane damages, early warning systems are being developed. These systems have the capability of real time flood forecasting to identify hazardous coastal areas and aid coastal communities in rescue operations. State of the art hydrodynamic models forced by atmospheric forcing have given modelers the ability to forecast storm surge, water levels and currents. This helps to identify the areas threatened by intense storms. Study on Chesapeake Bay area has gained national importance because of its combined riverine and coastal phenomenon, which leads to greater uncertainty in flood predictions. This study presents an automated flood forecast system developed by following Advanced Circulation (ADCIRC) Surge Guidance System (ASGS) guidelines and tailored to take in riverine and coastal boundary forcing, thus includes all the hydrodynamic processes to forecast total water in the Potomac River. As studies on tidal and riverine flow interaction are very scarce in number, our forecast system would be a scientific tool to examine such area and fill the gaps with precise prediction for Potomac River. Real-time observations from National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) and field measurements have been used as model boundary feeding. The model performance has been validated by using major historical riverine and coastal flooding events. Hydrodynamic model ADCIRC produced promising predictions for flood inundation areas. As better forecasts can be achieved by using coupled models, this system is developed to take boundary conditions from Global WaveWatchIII for the research purposes. Wave and swell propagation will be fed through Global WavewatchIII model to take into account the effects of swells and currents. This automated forecast system is currently undergoing rigorous testing to include any missing parameters which

Apparatus, System, And Method For Roadway Monitoring

KAUST Repository

Claudel, Christian G.

2015-06-02

An apparatus, system, and method for monitoring traffic and roadway water conditions. Traffic flow and roadway flooding is monitored concurrently through a wireless sensor network. The apparatus and system comprises ultrasound rangefinders monitoring traffic flow, flood water conditions, or both. Routing information may be calculated from the traffic conditions, such that routes are calculated to avoid roadways that are impassable or are slow due to traffic conditions.

Apparatus, System, And Method For Roadway Monitoring

KAUST Repository

Claudel, Christian G.

2015-01-01

An apparatus, system, and method for monitoring traffic and roadway water conditions. Traffic flow and roadway flooding is monitored concurrently through a wireless sensor network. The apparatus and system comprises ultrasound rangefinders monitoring traffic flow, flood water conditions, or both. Routing information may be calculated from the traffic conditions, such that routes are calculated to avoid roadways that are impassable or are slow due to traffic conditions.

Flood Inundation Mapping and Management using RISAT-1 derived Flood Inundation Areas, Cartosat-1 DEM and a River Flow Model

Science.gov (United States)

Kuldeep, K.; Garg, P. K.; Garg, R. D.

2017-12-01

The frequent occurrence of repeated flood events in many regions of the world causing damage to human life and property has augmented the need for effective flood risk management. Microwave satellite data is becoming an indispensable asset for monitoring of many environmental and climatic applications as numerous space-borne synthetic aperture radar (SAR) sensors are offering the data with high spatial resolutions and multi-polarization capabilities. The implementation and execution of Flood mapping, monitoring and management applications has become easier with the availability of SAR data which has obvious advantages over optical data due to its all weather, day and night capabilities. In this study, the exploitation of the SAR dataset for hydraulic modelling and disaster management has been highlighted using feature extraction techniques for water area identification and water level extraction within the floodplain. The availability of high precision digital elevation model generated from the Cartosat-1 stereo pairs has enhanced the capability of retrieving the water depth maps by incorporating the SAR derived flood extent maps. This paper illustrates the flood event on June 2013 in Yamuna River, Haryana, India. The water surface profile computed by combining the topographic data with the RISAT-1 data accurately reflects the true water line. Water levels that were computed by carrying out the modelling using hydraulic model in HECRAS also suggest that the water surface profiles provided by the combined use of topographic data and SAR accurately reflect the true water line. The proposed approach has also been found better in extraction of inundation within vegetated areas.

Flash flood disasters analysis and evaluation: a case study of Yiyang County in China

Science.gov (United States)

Li, Haichen; Zhang, Xiaolei; Li, Qing; Qin, Tao; Lei, Xiaohui

2018-03-01

Global climate change leads to the more extreme precipitation and more flash flood disasters, which is a serious threat to the mountain inhabitants. To prevent flash flood disasters, China started flash flood disaster control planning and other projects from 2006. Among those measures, non-engineering measures are effective and economical. This paper introduced the framework of flash flood disaster analysis and evaluation in China, followed by a case study of Yiyang County.

The use of PROBA-V data for Global Agricultural Monitoring

Science.gov (United States)

Bydekerke, Lieven; Gilliams, Sven; Kempeneers, Pieter; Piccard, Isabelle; Deronde, Bart; Eerens, Herman; Gobin, Anne

2015-04-01

Land conversion, forest cutting, urban growth, agricultural expansion, take place at an unprecedented rate and scale such that they have a strong economic and environmental impact. Understanding and measuring dynamics becomes a prerequisite for companies, governments, agencies, NGO's, research institutes and society in general. In many cases the temporal frequency of the information is a requirement to detect phenomena that can occur within a few days and at a certain geographic scale. For example frequent updates on crop condition and projected production are needed to stabilise agricultural markets. Large initiatives such as the GEOGLAM AMIS (Group on Earth Observations Global Agricultural Monitoring - Agricultural Market Information System) respond to this increased need. Observations over large areas are available through satellites, however, the following challenges remain: • obtaining frequent and consistent observations at sufficient level of detail to identify spatial phenomena. At present, no single mission is capable of providing near daily information of any place in the world at scales appropriate to detect land cover/use changes in a consistent manner. • the need for a historical reference. For agricultural monitoring and early warning purposes the comparison of the actual data with a historical reference is of the utmost importance. The PROBA-V mission is an important attempt to overcome these challenges. From its design and within the GIO-Global Land component a lot of work has been done to ensure the consistency between the PROBA-V data and the 15 years historical archive of SPOT-VEGETATION. In this respect PROBA-V observations are comparable with the SPOT-VEGETATION historical baseline and will therefore ensure the continuation of the standard agricultural monitoring products. Next to this integration with the historical archive, PROBA -V also provides an increase in spatial resolution from 1km to 300m and even 100m. The latter ensures a global

A Review on Applications of Remote Sensing and Geographic Information Systems (GIS in Water Resources and Flood Risk Management

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Xianwei Wang

2018-05-01

Full Text Available Water is one of the most critical natural resources that maintain the ecosystem and support people’s daily life. Pressures on water resources and disaster management are rising primarily due to the unequal spatial and temporal distribution of water resources and pollution, and also partially due to our poor knowledge about the distribution of water resources and poor management of their usage. Remote sensing provides critical data for mapping water resources, measuring hydrological fluxes, monitoring drought and flooding inundation, while geographic information systems (GIS provide the best tools for water resources, drought and flood risk management. This special issue presents the best practices, cutting-edge technologies and applications of remote sensing, GIS and hydrological models for water resource mapping, satellite rainfall measurements, runoff simulation, water body and flood inundation mapping, and risk management. The latest technologies applied include 3D surface model analysis and visualization of glaciers, unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV video image classification for turfgrass mapping and irrigation planning, ground penetration radar for soil moisture estimation, the Tropical Rainfall Measuring Mission (TRMM and the Global Precipitation Measurement (GPM satellite rainfall measurements, storm hyetography analysis, rainfall runoff and urban flooding simulation, and satellite radar and optical image classification for urban water bodies and flooding inundation. The application of those technologies is expected to greatly relieve the pressures on water resources and allow better mitigation of and adaptation to the disastrous impact of droughts and flooding.

Monitoring Global Geophysical Fluids by Space Geodesy

Science.gov (United States)

Chao, Benjamin F.; Dehant, V.; Gross, R. S.; Ray, R. D.; Salstein, D. A.; Watkins, M.

1999-01-01

Since its establishment on 1/1/1998 by the International Earth Rotation Service, the Coordinating Center for Monitoring Global Geophysical Fluids (MGGF) and its seven Special Bureaus have engaged in an effort to support and facilitate the understanding of the geophysical fluids in global geodynamics research. Mass transports in the atmosphere-hydrosphere-solid Earth-core system (the "global geophysical fluids") will cause the following geodynamic effects on a broad time scale: (1) variations in the solid Earth's rotation (in length-of-day and polar motion/nutation) via the conservation of angular momentum and effected by torques at the fluid-solid Earth interface; (2) changes in the global gravitational field according to Newton's gravitational law; and (3) motion in the center of mass of the solid Earth relative to that of the whole Earth ("geocenter") via the conservation of linear momentum. These minute signals have become observable by space geodetic techniques, primarily VLBI, SLR, GPS, and DORIS, with ever increasing precision/accuracy and temporal/spatial resolution. Each of the seven Special Bureaus within MGGF is responsible for calculations related to a specific Earth component or aspect -- Atmosphere, Ocean, Hydrology, Ocean Tides, Mantle, Core, and Gravity/Geocenter. Angular momenta and torques, gravitational coefficients, and geocenter shift will be computed for geophysical fluids based on global observational data, and from state-of-the-art models, some of which assimilate such data. The computed quantities, algorithm and data formats are standardized. The results are archived and made available to the scientific research community. This paper reports the status of the MGGF activities and current results.

Oversight role of the Independent Monitoring Board of the Global Polio Eradication Initiative.

Science.gov (United States)

Rutter, Paul D; Donaldson, Liam J

2014-11-01

The Global Polio Eradication Initiative (GPEI) established its Independent Monitoring Board (IMB) in 2010 to monitor and guide its progress toward stopping polio transmission globally. The concept of an IMB is innovative, with no clear analogue in the history of the GPEI or in any other global health program. The IMB meets with senior program officials every 3-6 months. Its reports provide analysis and recommendations about individual polio-affected countries. The IMB also examines issues affecting the global program as a whole. Its areas of focus have included escalating the level of priority afforded to polio eradication (particularly by recommending a World Health Assembly resolution to declare polio eradication a programmatic emergency, which was enacted in May 2012), placing greater emphasis on people factors in the delivery of the program, encouraging innovation, strengthening focus on the small number of so-called sanctuaries where polio persists, and continuous quality improvement to reach every missed child with vaccination. The IMB's true independence from the agencies and countries delivering the program has enabled it to raise difficult issues that others cannot. Other global health programs might benefit from establishing similar independent monitoring mechanisms. © The Author 2014. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the Infectious Diseases Society of America. All rights reserved. For Permissions, please e-mail: journals.permissions@oup.com.

A free and open source QGIS plugin for flood risk analysis: FloodRisk

Science.gov (United States)

Albano, Raffaele; Sole, Aurelia; Mancusi, Leonardo

2016-04-01

An analysis of global statistics shows a substantial increase in flood damage over the past few decades. Moreover, it is expected that flood risk will continue to rise due to the combined effect of increasing numbers of people and economic assets in risk-prone areas and the effects of climate change. In order to increase the resilience of European economies and societies, the improvement of risk assessment and management has been pursued in the last years. This results in a wide range of flood analysis models of different complexities with substantial differences in underlying components needed for its implementation, as geographical, hydrological and social differences demand specific approaches in the different countries. At present, it is emerging the need of promote the creation of open, transparent, reliable and extensible tools for a comprehensive, context-specific and applicable flood risk analysis. In this context, the free and open-source Quantum GIS (QGIS) plugin "FloodRisk" is a good starting point to address this objective. The vision of the developers of this free and open source software (FOSS) is to combine the main features of state-of-the-art science, collaboration, transparency and interoperability in an initiative to assess and communicate flood risk worldwide and to assist authorities to facilitate the quality and fairness of flood risk management at multiple scales. Among the scientific community, this type of activity can be labelled as "participatory research", intended as adopting a set of techniques that "are interactive and collaborative" and reproducible, "providing a meaningful research experience that both promotes learning and generates knowledge and research data through a process of guided discovery"' (Albano et al., 2015). Moreover, this FOSS geospatial approach can lowering the financial barriers to understanding risks at national and sub-national levels through a spatio-temporal domain and can provide better and more complete

Social media for disaster response during floods

Science.gov (United States)

Eilander, D.; van de Vries, C.; Baart, F.; van Swol, R.; Wagemaker, J.; van Loenen, A.

2015-12-01

During floods it is difficult to obtain real-time accurate information about the extent and severity of the hazard. This information is very important for disaster risk reduction management and crisis relief organizations. Currently, real-time information is derived from few sources such as field reports, traffic camera's, satellite images and areal images. However, getting a real-time and accurate picture of the situation on the ground remains difficult. At the same time, people affected by natural hazards increasingly share their observations and their needs through digital media. Unlike conventional monitoring systems, Twitter data contains a relatively large number of real-time ground truth observations representing both physical hazard characteristics and hazard impacts. In the city of Jakarta, Indonesia, the intensity of unique flood related tweets during a flood event, peaked at almost 900 tweets per minute during floods in early 2015. Flood events around the world in 2014/2015 yielded large numbers of flood related tweets: from Philippines (85.000) to Pakistan (82.000) to South-Korea (50.000) to Detroit (20.000). The challenge here is to filter out useful content from this cloud of data, validate these observations and convert them to readily usable information. In Jakarta, flood related tweets often contain information about the flood depth. In a pilot we showed that this type of information can be used for real-time mapping of the flood extent by plotting these observations on a Digital Elevation Model. Uncertainties in the observations were taken into account by assigning a probability to each observation indicating its likelihood to be correct based on statistical analysis of the total population of tweets. The resulting flood maps proved to be correct for about 75% of the neighborhoods in Jakarta. Further cross-validation of flood related tweets against (hydro-) meteorological data is to likely improve the skill of the method.

Flash Flood Detection in Urban Cities Using Ultrasonic and Infrared Sensors

KAUST Repository

Mousa, Mustafa; Zhang, Xiangliang; Claudel, Christian

2016-01-01

Floods are the most common type of natural disaster. Often leading to loss of lives and properties in the thousands yearly. Among these events, urban flash floods are particularly deadly because of the short timescales on which they occur, and because of the population density of cities. Since most flood casualties are caused by a lack of information on the impending flood (type, location, severity), sensing these events is critical to generate accurate and detailed warnings and short term forecasts. However, no dedicated flash flood sensing systems, that could monitor the propagation of flash floods, in real time, currently exist in cities. In the present paper, firstly a new sensing device that can simultaneously monitor urban flash floods and traffic congestion has been presented. This sensing device is based on the combination of ultrasonic range-finding with remote temperature sensing, and can sense both phenomena with a high degree of accuracy, using a combination of L1-regularized reconstruction and artificial neural networks to process measurement data. Secondly, corresponding algorithms have been implemented on a low-power wireless sensor platform, and their performance in water level estimation in a 6 months test involving four different sensors is illustrated. The results demonstrate that urban water levels can be reliably estimated with error less than 2 cm, and that the preprocessing and machine learning schemes can run in real-time on currently available wireless sensor platforms.

Flash Flood Detection in Urban Cities Using Ultrasonic and Infrared Sensors

KAUST Repository

Mousa, Mustafa

2016-07-19

Floods are the most common type of natural disaster. Often leading to loss of lives and properties in the thousands yearly. Among these events, urban flash floods are particularly deadly because of the short timescales on which they occur, and because of the population density of cities. Since most flood casualties are caused by a lack of information on the impending flood (type, location, severity), sensing these events is critical to generate accurate and detailed warnings and short term forecasts. However, no dedicated flash flood sensing systems, that could monitor the propagation of flash floods, in real time, currently exist in cities. In the present paper, firstly a new sensing device that can simultaneously monitor urban flash floods and traffic congestion has been presented. This sensing device is based on the combination of ultrasonic range-finding with remote temperature sensing, and can sense both phenomena with a high degree of accuracy, using a combination of L1-regularized reconstruction and artificial neural networks to process measurement data. Secondly, corresponding algorithms have been implemented on a low-power wireless sensor platform, and their performance in water level estimation in a 6 months test involving four different sensors is illustrated. The results demonstrate that urban water levels can be reliably estimated with error less than 2 cm, and that the preprocessing and machine learning schemes can run in real-time on currently available wireless sensor platforms.

Floods of Selected Streams in Arkansas, Spring 2008

Science.gov (United States)

Funkhouser, Jaysson E.; Eng, Ken

2009-01-01

Floods can cause loss of life and extensive destruction to property. Monitoring floods and understanding the reasons for their occurrence are the responsibility of many Federal agencies. The National Weather Service, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, and the U.S. Geological Survey are among the most visible of these agencies. Together, these three agencies collect and analyze floodflow information to better understand the variety of mechanisms that cause floods, and how the characteristics and frequencies of floods vary with time and location. The U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) has monitored and assessed the quantity of streamflow in our Nation's streams since the agency's inception in 1879. Because of ongoing collection and assessment of streamflow data, the USGS can provide information about a range of surface-water issues including the suitability of water for public supply and irrigation and the effects of agriculture and urbanization on streamflow. As part of its streamflow-data collection activities, the USGS measured streamflow in multiple streams during extreme flood events in Arkansas in the spring of 2008. The analysis of streamflow information collected during flood events such as these provides a scientific basis for decision making related to resource management and restoration. Additionally, this information can be used by water-resource managers to better define flood-hazard areas and to design bridges, culverts, dams, levees, and other structures. Water levels (stage) and streamflow (discharge) currently are being monitored in near real-time at approximately 150 locations in Arkansas. The streamflow-gaging stations measure and record hydrologic data at 15-minute or hourly intervals; the data then are transmitted through satellites to the USGS database and displayed on the internet every 1 to 4 hours. Streamflow-gaging stations in Arkansas are part of a network of over 7,500 active streamflow-gaging stations operated by the USGS throughout the United

Hospital infection prevention and control issues relevant to extensive floods.

Science.gov (United States)

Apisarnthanarak, Anucha; Mundy, Linda M; Khawcharoenporn, Thana; Glen Mayhall, C

2013-02-01

The devastating clinical and economic implications of floods exemplify the need for effective global infection prevention and control (IPC) strategies for natural disasters. Reopening of hospitals after excessive flooding requires a balance between meeting the medical needs of the surrounding communities and restoration of a safe hospital environment. Postflood hospital preparedness plans are a key issue for infection control epidemiologists, healthcare providers, patients, and hospital administrators. We provide recent IPC experiences related to reopening of a hospital after extensive black-water floods necessitated hospital closures in Thailand and the United States. These experiences provide a foundation for the future design, execution, and analysis of black-water flood preparedness plans by IPC stakeholders.

Evaluation of Satellite Rainfall Estimates for Drought and Flood Monitoring in Mozambique

OpenAIRE

Carolien Toté; Domingos Patricio; Hendrik Boogaard; Raymond van der Wijngaart; Elena Tarnavsky; Chris Funk

2015-01-01

Satellite derived rainfall products are useful for drought and flood early warning and overcome the problem of sparse, unevenly distributed and erratic rain gauge observations, provided their accuracy is well known. Mozambique is highly vulnerable to extreme weather events such as major droughts and floods and thus, an understanding of the strengths and weaknesses of different rainfall products is valuable. Three dekadal (10-day) gridded satellite rainfall products (TAMSAT African Rainfall Cl...

A complete CFD tool for flooding forecasting

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Nguyen, V.T.; Eberl, H.

2004-01-01

Every year, flooding does not only cause property damage of billions of dollars, but also threats to millions of human life around the world. The ability to accurately predict the extreme flooding in urban areas is of obvious importance in order to reduce flooding risks and to improve public safety. In this paper, a complete computational tool is presented that includes pre-processing, meshing, calculating and post-processing modules. The pre-processing procedure is used to interpolate the geometry of the river and floodplains where the data can not be obtained directly from measurements. The meshing procedure is implemented by a triangle mesh generator. The computational procedure is based on a Finite Element Method to discretize the two-dimensional depth-averaged equations for shallow water flow. The post-processing procedure, finally, is interfaced with Geographic Information Systems (GIS), which can serve as a tool for monitoring and as an early warning system. The numerical model is verified and calibrated through many practical projects of flood protection for rivers in Germany. The numerical results show a very good agreement with data from the field survey, as well as data from past flood events. Thus the numerical model can be used as an important tool for flood prediction. (author)

Mapping global surface water inundation dynamics using synergistic information from SMAP, AMSR2 and Landsat

Science.gov (United States)

Du, J.; Kimball, J. S.; Galantowicz, J. F.; Kim, S.; Chan, S.; Reichle, R. H.; Jones, L. A.; Watts, J. D.

2017-12-01

A method to monitor global land surface water (fw) inundation dynamics was developed by exploiting the enhanced fw sensitivity of L-band (1.4 GHz) passive microwave observations from the Soil Moisture Active Passive (SMAP) mission. The L-band fw (fwLBand) retrievals were derived using SMAP H-polarization brightness temperature (Tb) observations and predefined L-band reference microwave emissivities for water and land endmembers. Potential soil moisture and vegetation contributions to the microwave signal were represented from overlapping higher frequency Tb observations from AMSR2. The resulting fwLBand global record has high temporal sampling (1-3 days) and 36-km spatial resolution. The fwLBand annual averages corresponded favourably (R=0.84, pretrievals showed favourable classification accuracy for water (commission error 31.84%; omission error 28.08%) and land (commission error 0.82%; omission error 0.99%) and seasonal wet and dry periods when compared to independent water maps derived from Landsat-8 imagery. The new fwLBand algorithms and continuing SMAP and AMSR2 operations provide for near real-time, multi-scale monitoring of global surface water inundation dynamics, potentially benefiting hydrological monitoring, flood assessments, and global climate and carbon modeling.

Global AIDS Reporting-2001 to 2015: Lessons for Monitoring the Sustainable Development Goals.

Science.gov (United States)

Alfvén, T; Erkkola, T; Ghys, P D; Padayachy, J; Warner-Smith, M; Rugg, D; de Lay, P

2017-07-01

Since 2001 the UNAIDS Secretariat has retained the responsibility for monitoring progress towards global commitments on HIV/AIDS. Key critical characteristics of the reporting system were assessed for the reporting period from 2004 to 2014 and analyses were undertaken of response rates and core indicator performance. Country submission rates ranged from 102 (53%) Member States in 2004 to 186 (96%) in 2012. There was great variance in response rates for specific indicators, with the highest response rates for treatment-related indicators. The Global AIDS reporting system has improved substantially over time and has provided key trend data on responses to the HIV epidemic, serving as the global accountability mechanism and providing reference data on the global AIDS response. It will be critical that reporting systems continue to evolve to support the monitoring of the Sustainable Development Goals, in view of ending the AIDS epidemic as a public health threat by 2030.

Successful global assessments and monitoring: The roles of the international community and the United States

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Lund, H.G.

1991-01-01

Successful global assessments and monitoring of natural resources requires teamwork between participating nations and the international communities charged with the responsibility for collecting and disseminating information. In an attempt to identify emerging information needs and to promote coordination, the International Union of Forestry Research Organizations (IUFRO) and other national and international groups held a major conference and workshop in Venice, Italy, on global monitoring last September. The results of the meeting and subsequent events in Montreal indicated a need for more aggressive leadership at the international level and more cooperation at the national level. This paper reports on the outcome of the Venice conference and list some things that the international community and the United States must do to make global assessments and monitoring a reality

GEOGLAM Crop Assessment Tool: Adapting from global agricultural monitoring to food security monitoring

Science.gov (United States)

Humber, M. L.; Becker-Reshef, I.; Nordling, J.; Barker, B.; McGaughey, K.

2014-12-01

The GEOGLAM Crop Monitor's Crop Assessment Tool was released in August 2013 in support of the GEOGLAM Crop Monitor's objective to develop transparent, timely crop condition assessments in primary agricultural production areas, highlighting potential hotspots of stress/bumper crops. The Crop Assessment Tool allows users to view satellite derived products, best available crop masks, and crop calendars (created in collaboration with GEOGLAM Crop Monitor partners), then in turn submit crop assessment entries detailing the crop's condition, drivers, impacts, trends, and other information. Although the Crop Assessment Tool was originally intended to collect data on major crop production at the global scale, the types of data collected are also relevant to the food security and rangelands monitoring communities. In line with the GEOGLAM Countries at Risk philosophy of "foster[ing] the coordination of product delivery and capacity building efforts for national and regional organizations, and the development of harmonized methods and tools", a modified version of the Crop Assessment Tool is being developed for the USAID Famine Early Warning Systems Network (FEWS NET). As a member of the Countries at Risk component of GEOGLAM, FEWS NET provides agricultural monitoring, timely food security assessments, and early warnings of potential significant food shortages focusing specifically on countries at risk of food security emergencies. While the FEWS NET adaptation of the Crop Assessment Tool focuses on crop production in the context of food security rather than large scale production, the data collected is nearly identical to the data collected by the Crop Monitor. If combined, the countries monitored by FEWS NET and GEOGLAM Crop Monitor would encompass over 90 countries representing the most important regions for crop production and food security.

A global protocol for monitoring of coral bleaching

OpenAIRE

Oliver, J.; Setiasih, N.; Marshall, P.; Hansen, L.

2004-01-01

Coral bleaching and subsequent mortality represent a major threat to the future health and productivity of coral reefs. However a lack of reliable data on occurrence, severity and other characteristics of bleaching events hampers research on the causes and consequences of this important phenomenon. This article describes a global protocol for monitoring coral bleaching events, which addresses this problem and can be used by people with different levels of expertise and resources.

Analysis of coastal protection under rising flood risk

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Megan J. Lickley

2014-01-01

Full Text Available Infrastructure located along the U.S. Atlantic and Gulf coasts is exposed to rising risk of flooding from sea level rise, increasing storm surge, and subsidence. In these circumstances coastal management commonly based on 100-year flood maps assuming current climatology is no longer adequate. A dynamic programming cost–benefit analysis is applied to the adaptation decision, illustrated by application to an energy facility in Galveston Bay. Projections of several global climate models provide inputs to estimates of the change in hurricane and storm surge activity as well as the increase in sea level. The projected rise in physical flood risk is combined with estimates of flood damage and protection costs in an analysis of the multi-period nature of adaptation choice. The result is a planning method, using dynamic programming, which is appropriate for investment and abandonment decisions under rising coastal risk.

Assessment of adaptation measures against flooding in the city of Dhaka, Bangladesh

NARCIS (Netherlands)

A. Nasra Haque (Anika); S. Grafakos (Stelios); M. Huijsman (Marijk)

2010-01-01

textabstractDhaka is one of the world’s largest megacities with a high rate of urbanization. Due to the setting of greater Dhaka in a deltaic plain, it is extremely prone to detrimental flooding. Risks associated with flood are expected to increase in the coming years because of the global climate

Spatial observation and monitoring of the effects of the "New Climate" Warming on Morocco: Situation of the recent urban floods

Science.gov (United States)

Karrouk, M. S.

2017-12-01

Since the nineties of the last century, climatological research following a great scientific advance in the field of prediction, not the variability and evolution of the different climatic parameters was beginning to be clearer!But today, since the beginning of 2005, certainly due to oceanic thermal cumulations, and the shift of climatic zones towards poles in selective forms (more intense on the oceans present on the continents); Climatic events do not evolve according to the usual and expected rhythms: atmospheric circulation, precipitation, temperatures, seasonal phenomena, etc. These conditions are a spatiotemporal evolution and distribution, which characterize the new "global climate", by the new atmospheric regime imposing the Meridian Atmospheric Circulation (MAC), alternating the conditions of Freshness (humidity) and Heat (drought) along the year.In this new situation, Morocco, located in the climate transition zone, is fully affected by the "New Climate". Usually, the atmospheric response to major climatic events (ENSO) in this region such as "El Niño" was characterized by the establishment of the NAO positive index, stability and drought, due to dominance Zonal Atmospheric Circulation in winter. On the other hand, in the "La Niña" episode, the negative index of the NAO and the predominant Meridian Atmospheric Circulation and precipitation became abundant.Since the beginning of this century, qualified meteorological events of "exceptional !" causing floods have continued to occur in Morocco and elsewhere, with increasing recurrence, prompting us to wonder about the "new" mode of hydro-thermal function of the climate system that induces torrential rains, as well as its effect on environments and societies.The latest event is the flood disaster in October 2016 in the Laâyoune region of southern Morocco, which specializes in the unusual return of rain in a region considered dry and Saharan.Thanks to spatial observation and monitoring of meteorological

Socio-economic Impact Analysis for Near Real-Time Flood Detection in the Lower Mekong River Basin

Science.gov (United States)

Oddo, P.; Ahamed, A.; Bolten, J. D.

2017-12-01

Flood events pose a severe threat to communities in the Lower Mekong River Basin. The combination of population growth, urbanization, and economic development exacerbate the impacts of these flood events. Flood damage assessments are frequently used to quantify the economic losses in the wake of storms. These assessments are critical for understanding the effects of flooding on the local population, and for informing decision-makers about future risks. Remote sensing systems provide a valuable tool for monitoring flood conditions and assessing their severity more rapidly than traditional post-event evaluations. The frequency and severity of extreme flood events are projected to increase, further illustrating the need for improved flood monitoring and impact analysis. In this study we implement a socio-economic damage model into a decision support tool with near real-time flood detection capabilities (NASA's Project Mekong). Surface water extent for current and historical floods is found using multispectral Moderate-resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) 250-meter imagery and the spectral Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI) signatures of permanent water bodies (MOD44W). Direct and indirect damages to populations, infrastructure, and agriculture are assessed using the 2011 Southeast Asian flood as a case study. Improved land cover and flood depth assessments result in a more refined understanding of losses throughout the Mekong River Basin. Results suggest that rapid initial estimates of flood impacts can provide valuable information to governments, international agencies, and disaster responders in the wake of extreme flood events.

Floods in a changing climate: a review.

Science.gov (United States)

Hunt, J C R

2002-07-15

This paper begins with an analysis of flooding as a natural disaster for which the solutions to the environmental, social and economic problems are essentially those of identifying and overcoming hazards and vulnerability, reducing risk and damaging consequences. Long-term solutions to flooding problems, especially in a changing climate, should be sought in the wider context of developing more sustainable social organization, economics and technology. Then, developments are described of how scientific understanding, supported by practical modelling, is leading to predictions of how human-induced changes to climatic and geological conditions are likely to influence flooding over at least the next 300 years, through their influences on evaporation, precipitation, run-off, wind storm and sea-level rise. Some of the outstanding scientific questions raised by these problems are highlighted, such as the statistical and deterministic prediction of extreme events, the understanding and modelling of mechanisms that operate on varying length- and time-scales, and the complex interactions between biological, ecological and physical problems. Some options for reducing the impact of flooding by new technology include both improved prediction and monitoring with computer models, and remote sensing, flexible and focused warning systems, and permanent and temporary flood-reduction systems.

Development of a Ground-Based Atmospheric Monitoring Network for the Global Mercury Observation System (GMOS

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Sprovieri F.

2013-04-01

Full Text Available Consistent, high-quality measurements of atmospheric mercury (Hg are necessary in order to better understand Hg emissions, transport, and deposition on a global scale. Although the number of atmospheric Hg monitoring stations has increased in recent years, the available measurement database is limited and there are many regions of the world where measurements have not been extensively performed. Long-term atmospheric Hg monitoring and additional ground-based monitoring sites are needed in order to generate datasets that will offer new insight and information about the global scale trends of atmospheric Hg emissions and deposition. In the framework of the Global Mercury Observation System (GMOS project, a coordinated global observational network for atmospheric Hg is being established. The overall research strategy of GMOS is to develop a state-of-the-art observation system able to provide information on the concentration of Hg species in ambient air and precipitation on the global scale. This network is being developed by integrating previously established ground-based atmospheric Hg monitoring stations with newly established GMOS sites that are located both at high altitude and sea level locations, as well as in climatically diverse regions. Through the collection of consistent, high-quality atmospheric Hg measurement data, we seek to create a comprehensive assessment of atmospheric Hg concentrations and their dependence on meteorology, long-range atmospheric transport and atmospheric emissions.

Combining Space-Based and In-Situ Measurements to Track Flooding in Thailand

Science.gov (United States)

Chien, Steve; Doubleday, Joshua; Mclaren, David; Tran, Daniel; Tanpipat, Veerachai; Chitradon, Royal; Boonya-aaroonnet, Surajate; Thanapakpawin, Porranee; Khunboa, Chatchai; Leelapatra, Watis;

Improving Flood Prediction By the Assimilation of Satellite Soil Moisture in Poorly Monitored Catchments.

Science.gov (United States)

Alvarez-Garreton, C. D.; Ryu, D.; Western, A. W.; Crow, W. T.; Su, C. H.; Robertson, D. E.

2014-12-01

Flood prediction in poorly monitored catchments is among the greatest challenges faced by hydrologists. To address this challenge, an increasing number of studies in the last decade have explored methods to integrate various existing observations from ground and satellites. One approach in particular, is the assimilation of satellite soil moisture (SM-DA) into rainfall-runoff models. The rationale is that satellite soil moisture (SSM) can be used to correct model soil water states, enabling more accurate prediction of catchment response to precipitation and thus better streamflow. However, there is still no consensus on the most effective SM-DA scheme and how this might depend on catchment scale, climate characteristics, runoff mechanisms, model and SSM products used, etc. In this work, an operational SM-DA scheme was set up in the poorly monitored, large (>40,000 km2), semi-arid Warrego catchment situated in eastern Australia. We assimilated passive and active SSM products into the probability distributed model (PDM) using an ensemble Kalman filter. We explored factors influencing the SM-DA framework, including relatively new techniques to remove model-observation bias, estimate observation errors and represent model errors. Furthermore, we explored the advantages of accounting for the spatial distribution of forcing and channel routing processes within the catchment by implementing and comparing lumped and semi-distributed model setups. Flood prediction is improved by SM-DA (Figure), with a 30% reduction of the average root-mean-squared difference of the ensemble prediction, a 20% reduction of the false alarm ratio and a 40% increase of the ensemble mean Nash-Sutcliffe efficiency. SM-DA skill does not significantly change with different observation error assumptions, but the skill strongly depends on the observational bias correction technique used, and more importantly, on the performance of the open-loop model before assimilation. Our findings imply that proper

Towards monitoring land-cover and land-use changes at a global scale: the global land survey 2005

Science.gov (United States)

Gutman, G.; Byrnes, Raymond A.; Masek, J.; Covington, S.; Justice, C.; Franks, S.; Headley, Rachel

2008-01-01

Land cover is a critical component of the Earth system, infl uencing land-atmosphere interactions, greenhouse gas fl uxes, ecosystem health, and availability of food, fi ber, and energy for human populations. The recent Integrated Global Observations of Land (IGOL) report calls for the generation of maps documenting global land cover at resolutions between 10m and 30m at least every fi ve years (Townshend et al., in press). Moreover, despite 35 years of Landsat observations, there has not been a unifi ed global analysis of land-cover trends nor has there been a global assessment of land-cover change at Landsat-like resolution. Since the 1990s, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) and the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) have supported development of data sets based on global Landsat observations (Tucker et al., 2004). These land survey data sets, usually referred to as GeoCover ™, provide global, orthorectifi ed, typically cloud-free Landsat imagery centered on the years 1975, 1990, and 2000, with a preference for leaf-on conditions. Collectively, these data sets provided a consistent set of observations to assess land-cover changes at a decadal scale. These data are freely available via the Internet from the USGS Center for Earth Resources Observation and Science (EROS) (see http://earthexplorer.usgs.gov or http://glovis.usgs.gov). This has resulted in unprecedented downloads of data, which are widely used in scientifi c studies of land-cover change (e.g., Boone et al., 2007; Harris et al., 2005; Hilbert, 2006; Huang et al. 2007; Jantz et al., 2005, Kim et al., 2007; Leimgruber, 2005; Masek et al., 2006). NASA and USGS are continuing to support land-cover change research through the development of GLS2005 - an additional global Landsat assessment circa 20051 . Going beyond the earlier initiatives, this data set will establish a baseline for monitoring changes on a 5-year interval and will pave the way toward continuous global land

Changes in the timing and magnitude of floods in Canada

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Cunderlik, J.M.; Ouarda, T.B.M.J.

2008-01-01

It is expected that the global climate change will have significant impacts on the regime of hydrologic extremes. An increase in both the frequency and magnitude of hydrologic extremes is anticipated in the near future. As a consequence, the design and operation of water resource systems will have to adapt to the changing regime of hydrologic extremes. This study explores trends in the timing and magnitude of floods in natural streamflow gauging stations in Canada. The seasonality of floods is analyzed and the selected streamflow stations grouped into five flood seasonality regions. A common 30-year long observation period from 1974 to 2003 is used in the analysis to eliminate the effect of hydro-climatic variability in the timing and magnitude of floods resulting from different observation periods. The timing of floods is described in terms of directional statistics. A method is developed for analyzing trends in directional dates of flood occurrence that is not affected by the choice of zero direction. The magnitude of floods is analyzed by the annual maximum and peak-over-threshold methods. Trends in the timing and magnitude of floods are identified in each flood seasonality region using the Mann-Kendall nonparametric test, with a modification for auto-correlated data. The results show a good correspondence between the identified flood seasonality regions and the main terrestrial zones in Canada. Significant changes in the timing and magnitude of floods are found in the flood seasonality regions. (author)

Flooding and emergency room visits for gastrointestinal illness in Massachusetts: A case-crossover study.

Science.gov (United States)

Introduction: Floods and other severe weather events are anticipated to increase as a result of global climate change. Floods can lead to outbreaks of gastroenteritis and other infectious diseases due to disruption of sewage and water infrastructure and impacts on san...

Developing and implementing a data acquisition strategy for global agricultural monitoring: an inter-agency initiative

Science.gov (United States)

Justice, C. O.; Whitcraft, A. K.; Becker-Reshef, I.; Killough, B.

2013-12-01

In 2011, in response to global food crises, the G20 Agricultural Ministers launched a satellite-based global agricultural monitoring initiative to develop the Group on Earth Observations Global Agriculture Monitoring (GEOGLAM) system. The GEO is aimed at enhancing the availability and use of both satellite and in situ data for societal benefit. This initiative builds on the observation requirements developed by the GEO Agricultural Community of Practice, the understanding that no one satellite system can currently provide all the data needed for agricultural monitoring and the resulting recommendation for improved acquisition and availability of data by the World's space agencies. Implicit in this recommendation is the fact that certain regions of the Earth are imagery rich while others are imagery poor, leaving knowledge gaps about agricultural processes and food supply for certain areas of the World. In order to respond to these knowledge gaps and to strengthen national, regional, and global agricultural monitoring networks, GEOGLAM is working with the Committee on Earth Observations (CEOS), the space arm of GEO, to develop a coordinated global acquisition strategy. A key component of GEOGLAM is an effort to articulate the temporal and spatial Earth Observation (EO) requirements for monitoring; second, the identification of current and planned missions which are capable of fulfilling these EO requirements; and third, the development of a multi-agency, multi-mission image acquisition strategy for agricultural monitoring. CEOS engineers and GEOGLAM scientists have been collaborating on the EO requirements since 2012, and are now beginning the first implementation phase of the acquisition strategy. The goal is to put in place an operational system of systems using a virtual constellation of satellite-based sensors acquiring data to meet the needs for monitoring and early warning of shortfalls in agricultural production, a goal that was articulated in the 1970's

Coastal flood inundation monitoring with Satellite C-band and L-band Synthetic Aperture Radar data

Science.gov (United States)

Ramsey, Elijah W.; Rangoonwala, Amina; Bannister, Terri

2013-01-01

Satellite Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) was evaluated as a method to operationally monitor the occurrence and distribution of storm- and tidal-related flooding of spatially extensive coastal marshes within the north-central Gulf of Mexico. Maps representing the occurrence of marsh surface inundation were created from available Advanced Land Observation Satellite (ALOS) Phased Array type L-Band SAR (PALSAR) (L-band) (21 scenes with HH polarizations in Wide Beam [100 m]) data and Environmental Satellite (ENVISAT) Advanced SAR (ASAR) (C-band) data (24 scenes with VV and HH polarizations in Wide Swath [150 m]) during 2006-2009 covering 500 km of the Louisiana coastal zone. Mapping was primarily based on a decrease in backscatter between reference and target scenes, and as an extension of previous studies, the flood inundation mapping performance was assessed by the degree of correspondence between inundation mapping and inland water levels. Both PALSAR- and ASAR-based mapping at times were based on suboptimal reference scenes; however, ASAR performance seemed more sensitive to reference-scene quality and other types of scene variability. Related to water depth, PALSAR and ASAR mapping accuracies tended to be lower when water depths were shallow and increased as water levels decreased below or increased above the ground surface, but this pattern was more pronounced with ASAR. Overall, PALSAR-based inundation accuracies averaged 84% (n = 160), while ASAR-based mapping accuracies averaged 62% (n = 245).

Global Monitoring of Water Supply and Sanitation: History, Methods and Future Challenges

Science.gov (United States)

Bartram, Jamie; Brocklehurst, Clarissa; Fisher, Michael B.; Luyendijk, Rolf; Hossain, Rifat; Wardlaw, Tessa; Gordon, Bruce

2014-01-01

International monitoring of drinking water and sanitation shapes awareness of countries’ needs and informs policy, implementation and research efforts to extend and improve services. The Millennium Development Goals established global targets for drinking water and sanitation access; progress towards these targets, facilitated by international monitoring, has contributed to reducing the global disease burden and increasing quality of life. The experiences of the MDG period generated important lessons about the strengths and limitations of current approaches to defining and monitoring access to drinking water and sanitation. The methods by which the Joint Monitoring Programme (JMP) of WHO and UNICEF tracks access and progress are based on analysis of data from household surveys and linear regression modelling of these results over time. These methods provide nationally-representative and internationally-comparable insights into the drinking water and sanitation facilities used by populations worldwide, but also have substantial limitations: current methods do not address water quality, equity of access, or extra-household services. Improved statistical methods are needed to better model temporal trends. This article describes and critically reviews JMP methods in detail for the first time. It also explores the impact of, and future directions for, international monitoring of drinking water and sanitation. PMID:25116635

Future coastal population growth and exposure to sea-level rise and coastal flooding--a global assessment.

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Barbara Neumann

Full Text Available Coastal zones are exposed to a range of coastal hazards including sea-level rise with its related effects. At the same time, they are more densely populated than the hinterland and exhibit higher rates of population growth and urbanisation. As this trend is expected to continue into the future, we investigate how coastal populations will be affected by such impacts at global and regional scales by the years 2030 and 2060. Starting from baseline population estimates for the year 2000, we assess future population change in the low-elevation coastal zone and trends in exposure to 100-year coastal floods based on four different sea-level and socio-economic scenarios. Our method accounts for differential growth of coastal areas against the land-locked hinterland and for trends of urbanisation and expansive urban growth, as currently observed, but does not explicitly consider possible displacement or out-migration due to factors such as sea-level rise. We combine spatially explicit estimates of the baseline population with demographic data in order to derive scenario-driven projections of coastal population development. Our scenarios show that the number of people living in the low-elevation coastal zone, as well as the number of people exposed to flooding from 1-in-100 year storm surge events, is highest in Asia. China, India, Bangladesh, Indonesia and Viet Nam are estimated to have the highest total coastal population exposure in the baseline year and this ranking is expected to remain largely unchanged in the future. However, Africa is expected to experience the highest rates of population growth and urbanisation in the coastal zone, particularly in Egypt and sub-Saharan countries in Western and Eastern Africa. The results highlight countries and regions with a high degree of exposure to coastal flooding and help identifying regions where policies and adaptive planning for building resilient coastal communities are not only desirable but essential

Future coastal population growth and exposure to sea-level rise and coastal flooding--a global assessment.

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Neumann, Barbara; Vafeidis, Athanasios T; Zimmermann, Juliane; Nicholls, Robert J

2015-01-01

Coastal zones are exposed to a range of coastal hazards including sea-level rise with its related effects. At the same time, they are more densely populated than the hinterland and exhibit higher rates of population growth and urbanisation. As this trend is expected to continue into the future, we investigate how coastal populations will be affected by such impacts at global and regional scales by the years 2030 and 2060. Starting from baseline population estimates for the year 2000, we assess future population change in the low-elevation coastal zone and trends in exposure to 100-year coastal floods based on four different sea-level and socio-economic scenarios. Our method accounts for differential growth of coastal areas against the land-locked hinterland and for trends of urbanisation and expansive urban growth, as currently observed, but does not explicitly consider possible displacement or out-migration due to factors such as sea-level rise. We combine spatially explicit estimates of the baseline population with demographic data in order to derive scenario-driven projections of coastal population development. Our scenarios show that the number of people living in the low-elevation coastal zone, as well as the number of people exposed to flooding from 1-in-100 year storm surge events, is highest in Asia. China, India, Bangladesh, Indonesia and Viet Nam are estimated to have the highest total coastal population exposure in the baseline year and this ranking is expected to remain largely unchanged in the future. However, Africa is expected to experience the highest rates of population growth and urbanisation in the coastal zone, particularly in Egypt and sub-Saharan countries in Western and Eastern Africa. The results highlight countries and regions with a high degree of exposure to coastal flooding and help identifying regions where policies and adaptive planning for building resilient coastal communities are not only desirable but essential. Furthermore, we

Future Coastal Population Growth and Exposure to Sea-Level Rise and Coastal Flooding - A Global Assessment

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Neumann, Barbara; Vafeidis, Athanasios T.; Zimmermann, Juliane; Nicholls, Robert J.

2015-01-01

Coastal zones are exposed to a range of coastal hazards including sea-level rise with its related effects. At the same time, they are more densely populated than the hinterland and exhibit higher rates of population growth and urbanisation. As this trend is expected to continue into the future, we investigate how coastal populations will be affected by such impacts at global and regional scales by the years 2030 and 2060. Starting from baseline population estimates for the year 2000, we assess future population change in the low-elevation coastal zone and trends in exposure to 100-year coastal floods based on four different sea-level and socio-economic scenarios. Our method accounts for differential growth of coastal areas against the land-locked hinterland and for trends of urbanisation and expansive urban growth, as currently observed, but does not explicitly consider possible displacement or out-migration due to factors such as sea-level rise. We combine spatially explicit estimates of the baseline population with demographic data in order to derive scenario-driven projections of coastal population development. Our scenarios show that the number of people living in the low-elevation coastal zone, as well as the number of people exposed to flooding from 1-in-100 year storm surge events, is highest in Asia. China, India, Bangladesh, Indonesia and Viet Nam are estimated to have the highest total coastal population exposure in the baseline year and this ranking is expected to remain largely unchanged in the future. However, Africa is expected to experience the highest rates of population growth and urbanisation in the coastal zone, particularly in Egypt and sub-Saharan countries in Western and Eastern Africa. The results highlight countries and regions with a high degree of exposure to coastal flooding and help identifying regions where policies and adaptive planning for building resilient coastal communities are not only desirable but essential. Furthermore, we

Improving Radar QPE's in Complex Terrain for Improved Flash Flood Monitoring and Prediction

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Cifelli, R.; Streubel, D. P.; Reynolds, D.

2010-12-01

Quantitative Precipitation Estimation (QPE) is extremely challenging in regions of complex terrain due to a combination of issues related to sampling. In particular, radar beams are often blocked or scan above the liquid precipitation zone while rain gauge density is often too low to properly characterize the spatial distribution of precipitation. Due to poor radar coverage, rain gauge networks are used by the National Weather Service (NWS) River Forecast Centers as the principal source for QPE across the western U.S. The California Nevada River Forecast Center (CNRFC) uses point rainfall measurements and historical rainfall runoff relationships to derive river stage forecasts. The point measurements are interpolated to a 4 km grid using Parameter-elevation Regressions on Independent Slopes Model (PRISM) data to develop a gridded 6-hour QPE product (hereafter referred to as RFC QPE). Local forecast offices can utilize the Multi-sensor Precipitation Estimator (MPE) software to improve local QPE’s and thus local flash flood monitoring and prediction. MPE uses radar and rain gauge data to develop a combined QPE product at 1-hour intervals. The rain gauge information is used to bias correct the radar precipitation estimates so that, in situations where the rain gauge density and radar coverage are adequate, MPE can take advantage of the spatial coverage of the radar and the “ground truth” of the rain gauges to provide an accurate QPE. The MPE 1-hour QPE analysis should provide better spatial and temporal resolution for short duration hydrologic events as compared to 6-hour analyses. These hourly QPEs are then used to correct radar derived rain rates used by the Flash Flood Monitoring and Prediction (FFMP) software in forecast offices for issuance of flash flood warnings. Although widely used by forecasters across the eastern U.S., MPE is not used extensively by the NWS in the west. Part of the reason for the lack of use of MPE across the west is that there has

Flood hazard assessment in areas prone to flash flooding

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Kvočka, Davor; Falconer, Roger A.; Bray, Michaela

2016-04-01

Contemporary climate projections suggest that there will be an increase in the occurrence of high-intensity rainfall events in the future. These precipitation extremes are usually the main cause for the emergence of extreme flooding, such as flash flooding. Flash floods are among the most unpredictable, violent and fatal natural hazards in the world. Furthermore, it is expected that flash flooding will occur even more frequently in the future due to more frequent development of extreme weather events, which will greatly increase the danger to people caused by flash flooding. This being the case, there will be a need for high resolution flood hazard maps in areas susceptible to flash flooding. This study investigates what type of flood hazard assessment methods should be used for assessing the flood hazard to people caused by flash flooding. Two different types of flood hazard assessment methods were tested: (i) a widely used method based on an empirical analysis, and (ii) a new, physically based and experimentally calibrated method. Two flash flood events were considered herein, namely: the 2004 Boscastle flash flood and the 2007 Železniki flash flood. The results obtained in this study suggest that in the areas susceptible to extreme flooding, the flood hazard assessment should be conducted using methods based on a mechanics-based analysis. In comparison to standard flood hazard assessment methods, these physically based methods: (i) take into account all of the physical forces, which act on a human body in floodwater, (ii) successfully adapt to abrupt changes in the flow regime, which often occur for flash flood events, and (iii) rapidly assess a flood hazard index in a relatively short period of time.

Monitoring and research to describe geomorphic effects of the 2011 controlled flood on the Green River in the Canyon of Lodore, Dinosaur National Monument, Colorado and Utah

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Mueller, Erich R.; Grams, Paul E.; Schmidt, John C.; Hazel, Joseph E.; Kaplinski, Matt; Alexander, Jason A.; Kohl, Keith

2014-01-01

In 2011, a large magnitude flow release from Flaming Gorge Reservoir, Wyoming and Utah, occurred in response to high snowpack in the middle Rocky Mountains. This was the third highest recorded discharge along the Green River downstream of Flaming Gorge Dam, Utah, since its initial closure in November 1962 and motivated a research effort to document effects of these flows on channel morphology and sedimentology at four long-term monitoring sites within the Canyon of Lodore in Dinosaur National Monument, Colorado and Utah. Data collected in September 2011 included raft-based bathymetric surveys, ground-based surveys of banks, channel cross sections and vegetation-plot locations, sand-bar stratigraphy, and painted rock recovery on gravel bars. As part of this surveying effort, Global Navigation Satellite System (GNSS) data were collected at benchmarks on the canyon rim and along the river corridor to establish a high-resolution survey control network. This survey control network allows for the collection of repeatable spatial and elevation data necessary for high accuracy geomorphic change detection. Nearly 10,000 ground survey points and more than 20,000 bathymetric points (at 1-meter resolution) were collected over a 5-day field campaign, allowing for the construction of reach-scale digital elevation models (DEMs). Additionally, we evaluated long-term geomorphic change at these sites using repeat topographic surveys of eight monumented cross sections at each of the four sites. Analysis of DEMs and channel cross sections show a spatially variable pattern of erosion and deposition, both within and between reaches. As much as 5 meters of scour occurred in pools downstream from flow constrictions, especially in channel segments where gravel bars were absent. By contrast, some channel cross sections were stable during the 2011 floods, and have shown almost no change in over a decade of monitoring. Partial mobility of gravel bars occurred, and although in some locations

Flash floods in Catalonia: a recurrent situation

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Llasat, M. C.; Lindbergh, S.; Llasat-Botija, M.; Rodríguez, A.; Zaragoza, A.

2009-09-01

A database with information about the social impact produced by all the flood events recorded in Catalonia between 1982 and 2007 has been built. Original information comes from the INUNGAMA database (1900-2000) presented by Barnolas and Llasat (2007), the PRESSGAMA database (1982-2007) (Llasat et al., in rev.) and information from different published works (Barriendos et al, 2003; Barriendos and Pomés, 1993). Social impact has been obtained systematically in basis to news press data and, occasionally, in basis to insurance data. Flood events have been classified in ordinary floods, extraordinary floods and catastrophic ones, following the proposal of Llasat et al (2005). However, having in mind the flash floods effects, some new categories concerning casualties and car damages have also been introduced. The spatial and temporal distribution of these flood events has been analysed. Results have been compared with those obtained for the period 1900-2000 (Barnolas and Llasat, 2007) and 1350-2000 (Barrera et al, 2006). In order to better estimate the social impact and vulnerability some indicators have been defined and analyzed for some specific cases and a specific region. Besides the indicators applied in the INUNCAT Plan to obtain a cartography of flood risk in Catalonia, other ones like the number of cars affected or the number of request received by the meteorological service, has been also taken into account. These indicators allow analyzing global and temporal trends as well as characterizing the events. The selected region has been the Maresme, which is a flood prone region with a great density of population and that experiences every year one or more flash floods. The annual number of floods shows a positive trend that cannot be justified by the rainfall trend. Both vulnerability and hazard components have been considered and a discussion about the flood prevention measures is presented. The third part of this work has been centred in the analysis and

Structural Health Monitoring Based on Combined Structural Global and Local Frequencies

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Jilin Hou

2014-01-01

Full Text Available This paper presents a parameter estimation method for Structural Health Monitoring based on the combined measured structural global frequencies and structural local frequencies. First, the global test is experimented to obtain the low order modes which can reflect the global information of the structure. Secondly, the mass is added on the member of structure to increase the local dynamic characteristic and to make the member have local primary frequency, which belongs to structural local frequency and is sensitive to local parameters. Then the parameters of the structure can be optimized accurately using the combined structural global frequencies and structural local frequencies. The effectiveness and accuracy of the proposed method are verified by the experiment of a space truss.

Forecasting Global Rainfall for Points Using ECMWF's Global Ensemble and Its Applications in Flood Forecasting

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Pillosu, F. M.; Hewson, T.; Mazzetti, C.

2017-12-01

Prediction of local extreme rainfall has historically been the remit of nowcasting and high resolution limited area modelling, which represent only limited areas, may not be spatially accurate, give reasonable results only for limited lead times (based statistical post-processing software ("ecPoint-Rainfall, ecPR", operational in 2017) that uses ECMWF Ensemble (ENS) output to deliver global probabilistic rainfall forecasts for points up to day 10. Firstly, ecPR applies a new notion of "remote calibration", which 1) allows us to replicate a multi-centennial training period using only one year of data, and 2) provides forecasts for anywhere in the world. Secondly, the software applies an understanding of how different rainfall generation mechanisms lead to different degrees of sub-grid variability in rainfall totals, and of where biases in the model can be improved upon. A long-term verification has shown that the post-processed rainfall has better reliability and resolution at every lead time if compared with ENS, and for large totals, ecPR outputs have the same skill at day 5 that the raw ENS has at day 1 (ROC area metric). ecPR could be used as input for hydrological models if its probabilistic output is modified accordingly to the inputs requirements for hydrological models. Indeed, ecPR does not provide information on where the highest total is likely to occur inside the gridbox, nor on the spatial distribution of rainfall values nearby. "Scenario forecasts" could be a solution. They are derived from locating the rainfall peak in sensitive positions (e.g. urban areas), and then redistributing the remaining quantities in the gridbox modifying traditional spatial correlation characterization methodologies (e.g. variogram analysis) in order to take account, for instance, of the type of rainfall forecast (stratiform, convective). Such an approach could be a turning point in the field of medium-range global real-time riverine flood forecasts. This presentation will

The water footprint of human-made reservoirs for hydropower, irrigation, water supply, flood prevention, fishing and recreation on a global scale

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Hogeboom, Rick; Knook, Luuk; Hoekstra, Arjen

2017-04-01

Increasing the availability of freshwater to meet growing and competing demands is on many policy agendas. The Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) prescribe sustainable management of water for human consumption. For centuries humans have resorted to building dams to store water in periods of excess for use in times of shortage. Although dams and their reservoirs have made important contributions to human development, it is increasingly acknowledged that reservoirs can be substantial water consumers as well. We estimated the water footprint of human-made reservoirs on a global scale and attributed it to the various reservoir purposes (hydropower generation, residential and industrial water supply, irrigation water supply, flood protection, fishing and recreation) based on their economic value. We found that economic benefits from derived products and services from 2235 reservoirs globally, amount to 311 billion US dollar annually, with residential and industrial water supply and hydropower generation as major contributors. The water footprint associated with these benefits is the sum of the water footprint of dam construction (footprint of reservoirs globally adds up to ˜104 km3yr-1. Attribution per purpose shows that, with a global average water footprint of 21,5 m3GJ,-1 hydropower on average is a water intensive form of energy. We contextualized the water footprint of reservoirs and their purposes with regard to the water scarcity level of the river basin in which they occur. We found the lion's share (55%) of the water footprint is located in non-water scarce basins and only 1% in year-round scarce basins. The purpose for which the reservoir is primarily used changes with increasing water scarcity, from mainly hydropower generation in non-scarce basins, to the (more essential) purposes residential and industrial water supply, irrigation and flood control in scarcer areas. The quantitative explication of how the burden of water consumption from reservoirs is

Towards a global monitoring system for CMS computing operations

CERN Multimedia

CERN. Geneva; Bauerdick, Lothar A.T.

2012-01-01

The operation of the CMS computing system requires a complex monitoring system to cover all its aspects: central services, databases, the distributed computing infrastructure, production and analysis workflows, the global overview of the CMS computing activities and the related historical information. Several tools are available to provide this information, developed both inside and outside of the collaboration and often used in common with other experiments. Despite the fact that the current monitoring allowed CMS to successfully perform its computing operations, an evolution of the system is clearly required, to adapt to the recent changes in the data and workload management tools and models and to address some shortcomings that make its usage less than optimal. Therefore, a recent and ongoing coordinated effort was started in CMS, aiming at improving the entire monitoring system by identifying its weaknesses and the new requirements from the stakeholders, rationalise and streamline existing components and ...

The Financial Benefit of Early Flood Warnings in Europe

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Pappenberger, Florian; Cloke, Hannah L.; Wetterhall, Fredrik; Parker, Dennis J.; Richardson, David; Thielen, Jutta

2015-04-01

Effective disaster risk management relies on science based solutions to close the gap between prevention and preparedness measures. The outcome of consultations on the UNIDSR post-2015 framework for disaster risk reduction highlight the need for cross-border early warning systems to strengthen the preparedness phases of disaster risk management in order to save people's lives and property and reduce the overall impact of severe events. In particular, continental and global scale flood forecasting systems provide vital information to various decision makers with which early warnings of floods can be made. Here the potential monetary benefits of early flood warnings using the example of the European Flood Awareness System (EFAS) are calculated based on pan-European Flood damage data and calculations of potential flood damage reductions. The benefits are of the order of 400 Euro for every 1 Euro invested. Because of the uncertainties which accompany the calculation, a large sensitivity analysis is performed in order to develop an envelope of possible financial benefits. Current EFAS system skill is compared against perfect forecasts to demonstrate the importance of further improving the skill of the forecasts. Improving the response to warnings is also essential in reaping the benefits of flood early warnings.

Patterns and comparisons of human-induced changes in river flood impacts in cities

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Clark, Stephanie; Sharma, Ashish; Sisson, Scott A.

2018-03-01

In this study, information extracted from the first global urban fluvial flood risk data set (Aqueduct) is investigated and visualized to explore current and projected city-level flood impacts driven by urbanization and climate change. We use a novel adaption of the self-organizing map (SOM) method, an artificial neural network proficient at clustering, pattern extraction, and visualization of large, multi-dimensional data sets. Prevalent patterns of current relationships and anticipated changes over time in the nonlinearly-related environmental and social variables are presented, relating urban river flood impacts to socioeconomic development and changing hydrologic conditions. Comparisons are provided between 98 individual cities. Output visualizations compare baseline and changing trends of city-specific exposures of population and property to river flooding, revealing relationships between the cities based on their relative map placements. Cities experiencing high (or low) baseline flood impacts on population and/or property that are expected to improve (or worsen), as a result of anticipated climate change and development, are identified and compared. This paper condenses and conveys large amounts of information through visual communication to accelerate the understanding of relationships between local urban conditions and global processes.

Financing increasing flood risk: evidence from millions of buildings

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Jongman, B.; Koks, E. E.; Husby, T. G.; Ward, P. J.

2014-01-01

The effectiveness of disaster risk management and financing mechanisms depends on the accurate assessment of current and future hazard exposure. The increasing availability of detailed data offers policy makers and the insurance sector new opportunities to understand trends in risk, and to make informed decisions on the ways to deal with these trends. In this paper we show how comprehensive property level information can be used for the assessment of exposure to flooding on a national scale, and how this information can contribute to discussions on possible risk financing practices. The case-study used is the Netherlands, which is one of the countries most exposed to flooding globally, and which is currently undergoing a debate on strategies for the compensation of potential losses. Our results show that flood exposure has increased rapidly between 1960 and 2012, and that the growth of the building stock and its economic value in flood prone areas has been higher than in not flood prone areas. We also find that property values in flood prone areas are lower than those in not flood prone areas. We argue that the increase in the share of economic value located in potential flood prone areas can have a negative effect on the feasibility of private insurance schemes in the Netherlands. The methodologies and results presented in this study are relevant for many regions around the world where the effects of rising flood exposure create a challenge for risk financing.

Simulation of the 2008 Iowa Flood using HiResFlood-UCI Model with Remote Sensing Data

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Nguyen, P.; Thorstensen, A. R.; Hsu, K. L.; AghaKouchak, A.; Sanders, B. F.; Sorooshian, S.

2014-12-01

Precipitation is a key forcing variable in hydrological modeling of floods and being able to accurately observe precipitation is extremely important in mitigating flood impacts. The Global Precipitation Measurement (GPM) Mission, launched in Feb 2014 also presents an opportunity for high-quality real-time precipitation data and improved flood warnings. The PERSIANN-CCS developed by the scientists at the Center for Hydrometeorology and Remote Sensing (CHRS) at the University of California, Irvine is one algorithm integrated in the IMERG of PMM/GPM. In this research, the high resolution coupled hydrologic/hydraulic model named HiResFlood-UCI was applied to simulate the historical 2008 Iowa flood in the Cedar River basin. HiResFlood-UCI is a coupling of the NWS's distributed hydrologic model HL-RDHM and the hydraulic model BreZo developed by the Computational Hydraulics Group at the University of California, Irvine. The model was forced with the real-time PERSIANN-CCS and NEXRAD Stage 2 precipitation data. Simulations were evaluated based on 2 criteria: hydrographs within the basin and the areal extent of the flooding. Streamflow hydrographs were compared at 7 USGS gages, and simulated inundation maps were evaluated using USDA AWiFS 56m resolution areal flood imagery. The results show reasonable simulated hydrographs compared to USGS streamflow observations when simulating with PERSIANN-CCS and NEXRAD Stage 2 as forcing inputs. The simulation driven by NEXRAD Stage 2 slightly outperforms the PERSIANN-CCS simulation as the latter marginally underestimated the observed hydrographs. The simulation in both cases shows a good agreement (0.672 and 0.727 CSI for Stage 2 and PERSIANN-CCS simulations respectively) with the AWiFS image over the most impacted area in the Cedar Rapids region. Since the PERSIANN-CCS simulation slightly underestimated the discharge, the probability of detection (0.925) is lower than that of the Stage 2 simulation (0.965). As a trade-off, the false

GTSO: Global Trace Synchronization and Ordering Mechanism for Wireless Sensor Network Monitoring Platforms.

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Navia, Marlon; Campelo, José Carlos; Bonastre, Alberto; Ors, Rafael

2017-12-23

Monitoring is one of the best ways to evaluate the behavior of computer systems. When the monitored system is a distributed system-such as a wireless sensor network (WSN)-the monitoring operation must also be distributed, providing a distributed trace for further analysis. The temporal sequence of occurrence of the events registered by the distributed monitoring platform (DMP) must be correctly established to provide cause-effect relationships between them, so the logs obtained in different monitor nodes must be synchronized. Many of synchronization mechanisms applied to DMPs consist in adjusting the internal clocks of the nodes to the same value as a reference time. However, these mechanisms can create an incoherent event sequence. This article presents a new method to achieve global synchronization of the traces obtained in a DMP. It is based on periodic synchronization signals that are received by the monitor nodes and logged along with the recorded events. This mechanism processes all traces and generates a global post-synchronized trace by scaling all times registered proportionally according with the synchronization signals. It is intended to be a simple but efficient offline mechanism. Its application in a WSN-DMP demonstrates that it guarantees a correct ordering of the events, avoiding the aforementioned issues.

GTSO: Global Trace Synchronization and Ordering Mechanism for Wireless Sensor Network Monitoring Platforms

Science.gov (United States)

Bonastre, Alberto; Ors, Rafael

2017-01-01

Monitoring is one of the best ways to evaluate the behavior of computer systems. When the monitored system is a distributed system—such as a wireless sensor network (WSN)—the monitoring operation must also be distributed, providing a distributed trace for further analysis. The temporal sequence of occurrence of the events registered by the distributed monitoring platform (DMP) must be correctly established to provide cause-effect relationships between them, so the logs obtained in different monitor nodes must be synchronized. Many of synchronization mechanisms applied to DMPs consist in adjusting the internal clocks of the nodes to the same value as a reference time. However, these mechanisms can create an incoherent event sequence. This article presents a new method to achieve global synchronization of the traces obtained in a DMP. It is based on periodic synchronization signals that are received by the monitor nodes and logged along with the recorded events. This mechanism processes all traces and generates a global post-synchronized trace by scaling all times registered proportionally according with the synchronization signals. It is intended to be a simple but efficient offline mechanism. Its application in a WSN-DMP demonstrates that it guarantees a correct ordering of the events, avoiding the aforementioned issues. PMID:29295494

Flood monitoring and damage assessment using water indices: A case study of Pakistan flood-2012

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Akhtar Ali Memon

2015-06-01

Full Text Available This paper uses Normalized Difference Water Index (NDWI of McFeeters (1996, Water Index (WI introduced by Rogers and Kearney (2004, referred to as Red and Short Wave Infra-Red (RSWIR and WI suggested as the best by Ji et al. (2009, referred to as Green and Short Wave Infra-Red (GSWIR for delineating and mapping of surface water using MODIS (Terra near real time images during 2012 floods in Pakistan. The results from above indices have been compared with Landsat ETM+ classified images aiming to assess the accuracy of the indices. Accuracy assessment has been performed using spatial statistical techniques and found NDWI, RSWIR and GSWIR with kappa coefficient (κ of 46.66%, 70.80% and 60.61% respectively. It has been observed using statistical analysis and visual interpretation (expert knowledge gained by past experience that the NDWI and GSWIR have tendencies to underestimate and overestimate respectively the inundated area. Keeping in view the above facts, RSWIR has proved to be the best of the three indices. In addition, assessment of the damages has been carried out considering accumulated flood extent obtained from RSWIR. The information derived proved to be essential and valuable for disaster management plan and rehabilitation.

A review on bridge dynamic displacement monitoring using global positioning system and accelerometer

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Yunus, Mohd Zulkifli Mohd; Ibrahim, Nuremira; Ahmad, Fatimah Shafinaz

2018-02-01

This paper reviews previous research on bridge dynamic displacement monitoring using Global Positioning System (GPS) and an accelerometer for Structural Health Monitoring (SHM) of bridge. These include the review of the advantages and disadvantages of the measurement as well as the methodology of the measurements used in the recent research study. This review could provide a preliminary decision overview for students or researchers before initiating a research related to the bridge dynamic displacement monitoring.

Study of flood defense structural measures priorities using Compromise Programming technique

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Lim, D.; Jeong, S.

2017-12-01

Recent climate change of global warming has led to the frequent occurrence of heavy regional rainfalls. As such, inundation vulnerability increases in urban areas with high population density due to the low runoff carrying capacity. This study selects a sample area (Janghang-eup, the Republic of Korea), which is one of the most vulnerable areas to flooding, analyzing the urban flood runoff model (XP-SWMM) and using the MCDM (Multi-Criteria Decision Making) technique to establish flood protection structural measures. To this end, we compare the alternatives and choose the optimal flood defense measure: our model is utilized with three flood prevention structural measures; (i) drainage pipe construction; (ii) water detention; and (iii) flood pumping station. Dividing the target area into three small basins, we propose flood evaluations for an inundation decrease by studying the flooded area, the maximum inundation depth, the damaged residential area, and the construction cost. In addition, Compromise Programming determines the priority of the alternatives. As a consequent, this study suggests flood pumping station for Zone 1 and drainage pipe construction for Zone 2 and Zone 3, respectively, as the optimal flood defense alternative. Keywords : MCDM; Compromise Programming; Urban Flood Prevention; This research was supported by a grant [MPSS-DP-2013-62] through the Disaster and Safety Management Institute funded by Ministry of Public Safety and Security of Korean government.

Temporal clustering of floods in Germany: Do flood-rich and flood-poor periods exist?

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Merz, Bruno; Nguyen, Viet Dung; Vorogushyn, Sergiy

2016-10-01

The repeated occurrence of exceptional floods within a few years, such as the Rhine floods in 1993 and 1995 and the Elbe and Danube floods in 2002 and 2013, suggests that floods in Central Europe may be organized in flood-rich and flood-poor periods. This hypothesis is studied by testing the significance of temporal clustering in flood occurrence (peak-over-threshold) time series for 68 catchments across Germany for the period 1932-2005. To assess the robustness of the results, different methods are used: Firstly, the index of dispersion, which quantifies the departure from a homogeneous Poisson process, is investigated. Further, the time-variation of the flood occurrence rate is derived by non-parametric kernel implementation and the significance of clustering is evaluated via parametric and non-parametric tests. Although the methods give consistent overall results, the specific results differ considerably. Hence, we recommend applying different methods when investigating flood clustering. For flood estimation and risk management, it is of relevance to understand whether clustering changes with flood severity and time scale. To this end, clustering is assessed for different thresholds and time scales. It is found that the majority of catchments show temporal clustering at the 5% significance level for low thresholds and time scales of one to a few years. However, clustering decreases substantially with increasing threshold and time scale. We hypothesize that flood clustering in Germany is mainly caused by catchment memory effects along with intra- to inter-annual climate variability, and that decadal climate variability plays a minor role.

Major floods, poor land use delay return of sedimentation to normal rates

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Henry W. Anderson

1972-01-01

Recovery from flood-accelerated sedimentation affects both estimates of long-term average deposition and short-term monitoring of changes. "Years to return to normal" for 10 watersheds in northern California after a major flood accelerated sediment concentrations were analyzed. Returns to normalcy took from 0 to 9 years; rate of decline was related to both...

An empirical assessment of which inland floods can be managed.

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Mogollón, Beatriz; Frimpong, Emmanuel A; Hoegh, Andrew B; Angermeier, Paul L

2016-02-01

Riverine flooding is a significant global issue. Although it is well documented that the influence of landscape structure on floods decreases as flood size increases, studies that define a threshold flood-return period, above which landscape features such as topography, land cover and impoundments can curtail floods, are lacking. Further, the relative influences of natural versus built features on floods is poorly understood. Assumptions about the types of floods that can be managed have considerable implications for the cost-effectiveness of decisions to invest in transforming land cover (e.g., reforestation) and in constructing structures (e.g., storm-water ponds) to control floods. This study defines parameters of floods for which changes in landscape structure can have an impact. We compare nine flood-return periods across 31 watersheds with widely varying topography and land cover in the southeastern United States, using long-term hydrologic records (≥20 years). We also assess the effects of built flow-regulating features (best management practices and artificial water bodies) on selected flood metrics across urban watersheds. We show that landscape features affect magnitude and duration of only those floods with return periods ≤10 years, which suggests that larger floods cannot be managed effectively by manipulating landscape structure. Overall, urban watersheds exhibited larger (270 m(3)/s) but quicker (0.41 days) floods than non-urban watersheds (50 m(3)/s and 1.5 days). However, urban watersheds with more flow-regulating features had lower flood magnitudes (154 m(3)/s), but similar flood durations (0.55 days), compared to urban watersheds with fewer flow-regulating features (360 m(3)/s and 0.23 days). Our analysis provides insight into the magnitude, duration and count of floods that can be curtailed by landscape structure and its management. Our findings are relevant to other areas with similar climate, topography, and land use, and can help

An empirical assessment of which inland floods can be managed

Science.gov (United States)

Mogollón, Beatriz; Frimpong, Emmanuel A.; Hoegh, Andrew B.; Angermeier, Paul

2016-01-01

Riverine flooding is a significant global issue. Although it is well documented that the influence of landscape structure on floods decreases as flood size increases, studies that define a threshold flood-return period, above which landscape features such as topography, land cover and impoundments can curtail floods, are lacking. Further, the relative influences of natural versus built features on floods is poorly understood. Assumptions about the types of floods that can be managed have considerable implications for the cost-effectiveness of decisions to invest in transforming land cover (e.g., reforestation) and in constructing structures (e.g., storm-water ponds) to control floods. This study defines parameters of floods for which changes in landscape structure can have an impact. We compare nine flood-return periods across 31 watersheds with widely varying topography and land cover in the southeastern United States, using long-term hydrologic records (≥20 years). We also assess the effects of built flow-regulating features (best management practices and artificial water bodies) on selected flood metrics across urban watersheds. We show that landscape features affect magnitude and duration of only those floods with return periods ≤10 years, which suggests that larger floods cannot be managed effectively by manipulating landscape structure. Overall, urban watersheds exhibited larger (270 m3/s) but quicker (0.41 days) floods than non-urban watersheds (50 m3/s and 1.5 days). However, urban watersheds with more flow-regulating features had lower flood magnitudes (154 m3/s), but similar flood durations (0.55 days), compared to urban watersheds with fewer flow-regulating features (360 m3/s and 0.23 days). Our analysis provides insight into the magnitude, duration and count of floods that can be curtailed by landscape structure and its management. Our findings are relevant to other areas with similar climate, topography, and land use, and can help ensure that

A new French flash flood warning service

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

de Saint-Aubin Céline

2016-01-01

Full Text Available The French State services in charge of flood forecasting supervise about 22,000 km among the 120,000 km of the French rivers within a warning procedure called Vigilance Crues (http://www.vigicrues.gouv.fr. Some recent dramatic flood events on small watershed not covered by Vigilance Crues highlight the need for a new warning procedure to anticipate violent flash floods that regularly affect rapid river-basins. Thus the concept emerged of an automatic warning service specifically dedicated to local crisis managers. This service will be less elaborated than Vigilance Crues, probably with false alarms and missed events sometimes, but it will deliver a first information. The generation of the warning is based on a simple rainfall-runoff hydrological model developed by Irstea on all French rivers, fed with radar-gauge rainfall grids provided by Meteo-France. Every fifteen minutes, the hydrological model estimates the discharges on the rivers eligible to the service and determine if certain thresholds corresponding to a high or very high flood are likely to be exceeded. The last step of the real-time system is to determine which municipalities are concerned with flood risk and send them an automatic warning by voice call, optionally by sms or email. A specific web interface is available for users to monitor the evolution of the flood risk on maps that are updated every 15 minutes. This new flash flood warning service will be operational early 2017 as a free service for about 8,000 French municipalities.

Venice: Fifty years after the great flood of November 4, 1966

Science.gov (United States)

Rizzoli, P. M.

2017-12-01

Fifty years ago Venice and its lagoon suffered the most devastating flood in their millennial history. The causes of the increasingly recurring floods will be examined, namely the man-induced subsidence in the period 1925-1970 and the storm surges of the Adriatic sea. The engineering solution designed for their protection , named the MOSE system, will be discussed in detail. The MOSE was started in 2003 and is near completion. It consists of four barriers , invisible in normal conditions, which will close the inlets to the lagoon under the prediction of a forthcoming flood. Finally, the perspective of the MOSE capability of protecting the city under scenarios of future global sea level rise will be assessed. This assessment must critically take into account that Venice and its lagoon are confined in the northernmost corner of the semi-enclosed, marginal Mediterranean sea for which the uncertainties of future sea level rise greatly exceed the uncertainties of the global averages.

Global Climate Model Simulated Hydrologic Droughts and Floods in the Nelson-Churchill Watershed

Science.gov (United States)

Vieira, M. J. F.; Stadnyk, T. A.; Koenig, K. A.

2014-12-01

There is uncertainty surrounding the duration, magnitude and frequency of historical hydroclimatic extremes such as hydrologic droughts and floods prior to the observed record. In regions where paleoclimatic studies are less reliable, Global Climate Models (GCMs) can provide useful information about past hydroclimatic conditions. This study evaluates the use of Coupled Model Intercomparison Project 5 (CMIP5) GCMs to enhance the understanding of historical droughts and floods across the Canadian Prairie region in the Nelson-Churchill Watershed (NCW). The NCW is approximately 1.4 million km2 in size and drains into Hudson Bay in Northern Manitoba, Canada. One hundred years of observed hydrologic records show extended dry and wet periods in this region; however paleoclimatic studies suggest that longer, more severe droughts have occurred in the past. In Manitoba, where hydropower is the primary source of electricity, droughts are of particular interest as they are important for future resource planning. Twenty-three GCMs with daily runoff are evaluated using 16 metrics for skill in reproducing historic annual runoff patterns. A common 56-year historic period of 1950-2005 is used for this evaluation to capture wet and dry periods. GCM runoff is then routed at a grid resolution of 0.25° using the WATFLOOD hydrological model storage-routing algorithm to develop streamflow scenarios. Reservoir operation is naturalized and a consistent temperature scenario is used to determine ice-on and ice-off conditions. These streamflow simulations are compared with the historic record to remove bias using quantile mapping of empirical distribution functions. GCM runoff data from pre-industrial and future projection experiments are also bias corrected to obtain extended streamflow simulations. GCM streamflow simulations of more than 650 years include a stationary (pre-industrial) period and future periods forced by radiative forcing scenarios. Quantile mapping adjusts for magnitude

Fiji's worst natural disaster: the 1931 hurricane and flood.

Science.gov (United States)

Yeo, Stephen W; Blong, Russell J

2010-07-01

At least 225 people in the Fiji Islands died as a result of the 1931 hurricane and flood, representing the largest loss of life from a natural disaster in Fiji's recent history. This paper explores the causes of disaster and the potential for recurrence. The disaster occurred because a rare event surprised hundreds of people-especially recently settled Indian farmers-occupying highly exposed floodplains in north-west Viti Levu island. The likelihood of a flood disaster of such proportions occurring today has been diminished by changed settlement patterns and building materials; however, a trend towards re-occupancy of floodplains, sometimes in fragile dwellings, is exposing new generations to flood risks. The contribution of this paper to the global hazards literature is set out in three sections: the ethnicity, gender and age of flood fatalities; the naturalness of disasters; and the merit of choice and constraint as explanations for patterns of vulnerability.

Numerical simulation on the southern flood and northern drought in summer 2014 over Eastern China

Science.gov (United States)

Xu, Lianlian; He, Shengping; Li, Fei; Ma, Jiehua; Wang, Huijun

2017-12-01

In summer 2014, Eastern China suffered a typical "southern flood and northern drought" anomalous climate. Observational analyses indicated that the anomalous vertical motion, East Asian subtropical westerly jet stream, and the East Asian summer monsoon (EASM) played important roles in the formation of such precipitation anomaly. Furthermore, using the climate model (IAP-AGCM-4.1) perturbed by simultaneous observed sea surface temperature anomalies (SSTAs) in global scale and four different regions (North Pacific, Indian Ocean, North Atlantic, and Equatorial Pacific), this study investigated the potential contribution of ocean to such "southern flood and northern drought" over Eastern China in summer 2014. The simulations forced by global-scale SSTAs or North Pacific SSTAs displayed the most similarity to the observed "southern flood and northern drought" over Eastern China. It was revealed that the global-scale and North Pacific SSTAs influenced the rainfall over Eastern China via modulating the EASM. The related simulations successfully reproduced the associated atmospheric circulation anomalies. The experiment driven by Indian Ocean SSTAs could also reproduce the similar precipitation anomaly pattern and suggested that the Indian Ocean exerted pronounced influence on the North Pacific Subtropical High. Additionally, the simulations forced by SSTAs in the North Atlantic and Equatorial Pacific successfully reproduced the northern drought but failed to capture the southern flood. The simulations suggested that precipitation anomaly over Eastern China in summer 2014 was a comprehensive effect of global SSTAs and the dominant contribution to the "southern flood and northern drought" pattern came from the North Pacific and Indian Ocean.

Hydrodynamic modelling and global datasets: Flow connectivity and SRTM data, a Bangkok case study.

Science.gov (United States)

Trigg, M. A.; Bates, P. B.; Michaelides, K.

2012-04-01

The rise in the global interconnected manufacturing supply chains requires an understanding and consistent quantification of flood risk at a global scale. Flood risk is often better quantified (or at least more precisely defined) in regions where there has been an investment in comprehensive topographical data collection such as LiDAR coupled with detailed hydrodynamic modelling. Yet in regions where these data and modelling are unavailable, the implications of flooding and the knock on effects for global industries can be dramatic, as evidenced by the recent floods in Bangkok, Thailand. There is a growing momentum in terms of global modelling initiatives to address this lack of a consistent understanding of flood risk and they will rely heavily on the application of available global datasets relevant to hydrodynamic modelling, such as Shuttle Radar Topography Mission (SRTM) data and its derivatives. These global datasets bring opportunities to apply consistent methodologies on an automated basis in all regions, while the use of coarser scale datasets also brings many challenges such as sub-grid process representation and downscaled hydrology data from global climate models. There are significant opportunities for hydrological science in helping define new, realistic and physically based methodologies that can be applied globally as well as the possibility of gaining new insights into flood risk through analysis of the many large datasets that will be derived from this work. We use Bangkok as a case study to explore some of the issues related to using these available global datasets for hydrodynamic modelling, with particular focus on using SRTM data to represent topography. Research has shown that flow connectivity on the floodplain is an important component in the dynamics of flood flows on to and off the floodplain, and indeed within different areas of the floodplain. A lack of representation of flow connectivity, often due to data resolution limitations, means

Future probabilities of coastal floods in Finland

Science.gov (United States)

Pellikka, Havu; Leijala, Ulpu; Johansson, Milla M.; Leinonen, Katri; Kahma, Kimmo K.

2018-04-01

Coastal planning requires detailed knowledge of future flooding risks, and effective planning must consider both short-term sea level variations and the long-term trend. We calculate distributions that combine short- and long-term effects to provide estimates of flood probabilities in 2050 and 2100 on the Finnish coast in the Baltic Sea. Our distributions of short-term sea level variations are based on 46 years (1971-2016) of observations from the 13 Finnish tide gauges. The long-term scenarios of mean sea level combine postglacial land uplift, regionally adjusted scenarios of global sea level rise, and the effect of changes in the wind climate. The results predict that flooding risks will clearly increase by 2100 in the Gulf of Finland and the Bothnian Sea, while only a small increase or no change compared to present-day conditions is expected in the Bothnian Bay, where the land uplift is stronger.

Flash flooding: Toward an Interdisciplinary and Integrated Strategy for Disaster Reduction in a Global Environmental Change Perspective

Science.gov (United States)

Ruin, Isabelle

2014-05-01

How do people answer to heavy precipitation and flood warnings? How do they adapt their daily schedule and activity to the fast evolution of the environmental circumstances? More generally, how do social processes interact with physical ones? Such questions address the dynamical interactions between hydro-meteorological variables, human perception and representation of the environment, and actual individual and social behavioral responses. It also poses the question of scales and hierarchy issues through seamless interactions between smaller and larger scales. These questions are relevant for both social and physical scientists. They are more and more pertinently addressed in the Global Environmental Change perspective through the concepts of Coupled Human And Natural Systems (CHANS), resilience or panarchy developped in the context of interdisciplinary collaborations. Nevertheless those concepts are complex and not easy to handle, specially when facing with operational goals. One of the main difficulty to advance these integrated approaches is the access to empirical data informing the processes at various scales. In fact, if physical and social processes are well studied by distinct disciplines, they are rarely jointly explored within similar spatial and temporal resolutions. Such coupled observation and analysis poses methodological challenges, specially when dealing with responses to short-fuse and extreme weather events. In fact, if such coupled approach is quite common to study large scale phenomenon like global change (for instance using historical data on green house gaz emissions and the evolution of temperatures worldwide), it is rarer for studing smaller nested sets of scales of human-nature systems where finer resolution data are sparse. Another problem arise from the need to produce comparable analysis on different case studies where social, physical and even cultural contexts may be diverse. Generic and robust framework for data collection, modeling

Global disease monitoring and forecasting with Wikipedia.

Science.gov (United States)

Generous, Nicholas; Fairchild, Geoffrey; Deshpande, Alina; Del Valle, Sara Y; Priedhorsky, Reid

2014-11-01

Infectious disease is a leading threat to public health, economic stability, and other key social structures. Efforts to mitigate these impacts depend on accurate and timely monitoring to measure the risk and progress of disease. Traditional, biologically-focused monitoring techniques are accurate but costly and slow; in response, new techniques based on social internet data, such as social media and search queries, are emerging. These efforts are promising, but important challenges in the areas of scientific peer review, breadth of diseases and countries, and forecasting hamper their operational usefulness. We examine a freely available, open data source for this use: access logs from the online encyclopedia Wikipedia. Using linear models, language as a proxy for location, and a systematic yet simple article selection procedure, we tested 14 location-disease combinations and demonstrate that these data feasibly support an approach that overcomes these challenges. Specifically, our proof-of-concept yields models with r2 up to 0.92, forecasting value up to the 28 days tested, and several pairs of models similar enough to suggest that transferring models from one location to another without re-training is feasible. Based on these preliminary results, we close with a research agenda designed to overcome these challenges and produce a disease monitoring and forecasting system that is significantly more effective, robust, and globally comprehensive than the current state of the art.

Global disease monitoring and forecasting with Wikipedia.

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Nicholas Generous

2014-11-01

Full Text Available Infectious disease is a leading threat to public health, economic stability, and other key social structures. Efforts to mitigate these impacts depend on accurate and timely monitoring to measure the risk and progress of disease. Traditional, biologically-focused monitoring techniques are accurate but costly and slow; in response, new techniques based on social internet data, such as social media and search queries, are emerging. These efforts are promising, but important challenges in the areas of scientific peer review, breadth of diseases and countries, and forecasting hamper their operational usefulness. We examine a freely available, open data source for this use: access logs from the online encyclopedia Wikipedia. Using linear models, language as a proxy for location, and a systematic yet simple article selection procedure, we tested 14 location-disease combinations and demonstrate that these data feasibly support an approach that overcomes these challenges. Specifically, our proof-of-concept yields models with r2 up to 0.92, forecasting value up to the 28 days tested, and several pairs of models similar enough to suggest that transferring models from one location to another without re-training is feasible. Based on these preliminary results, we close with a research agenda designed to overcome these challenges and produce a disease monitoring and forecasting system that is significantly more effective, robust, and globally comprehensive than the current state of the art.

Towards modelling flood protection investment as a coupled human and natural system

Science.gov (United States)

O'Connell, P. E.; O'Donnell, G.

2014-01-01

Due to a number of recent high-profile flood events and the apparent threat from global warming, governments and their agencies are under pressure to make proactive investments to protect people living in floodplains. However, adopting a proactive approach as a universal strategy is not affordable. It has been argued that delaying expensive and essentially irreversible capital decisions could be a prudent strategy in situations with high future uncertainty. This paper firstly uses Monte Carlo simulation to explore the performance of proactive and reactive investment strategies using a rational cost-benefit approach in a natural system with varying levels of persistence/interannual variability in annual maximum floods. It is found that, as persistence increases, there is a change in investment strategy optimality from proactive to reactive. This could have implications for investment strategies under the increasingly variable climate that is expected with global warming. As part of the emerging holistic approaches to flood risk management, there is increasing emphasis on stakeholder participation in determining where and when flood protection investments are made, and so flood risk management is becoming more people-centred. As a consequence, multiple actors are involved in the decision-making process, and the social sciences are assuming an increasingly important role in flood risk management. There is a need for modelling approaches which can couple the natural and human system elements. It is proposed that coupled human and natural system (CHANS) modelling could play an important role in understanding the motivations, actions and influence of citizens and institutions and how these impact on the effective delivery of flood protection investment. A framework for using agent-based modelling of human activities leading to flood investments is outlined, and some of the challenges associated with implementation are discussed.

Global Precipitation Measurement Mission: Architecture and Mission Concept

Science.gov (United States)

Bundas, David

2005-01-01

The Global Precipitation Measurement (GPM) Mission is a collaboration between the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) and the Japanese Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA), and other partners, with the goal of monitoring the diurnal and seasonal variations in precipitation over the surface of the earth. These measurements will be used to improve current climate models and weather forecasting, and enable improved storm and flood warnings. This paper gives an overview of the mission architecture and addresses some of the key trades that have been completed, including the selection of the Core Observatory s orbit, orbit maintenance trades, and design issues related to meeting orbital debris requirements.

The 'global health' education framework: a conceptual guide for monitoring, evaluation and practice

Science.gov (United States)

2011-01-01

Background In the past decades, the increasing importance of and rapid changes in the global health arena have provoked discussions on the implications for the education of health professionals. In the case of Germany, it remains yet unclear whether international or global aspects are sufficiently addressed within medical education. Evaluation challenges exist in Germany and elsewhere due to a lack of conceptual guides to develop, evaluate or assess education in this field. Objective To propose a framework conceptualising 'global health' education (GHE) in practice, to guide the evaluation and monitoring of educational interventions and reforms through a set of key indicators that characterise GHE. Methods Literature review; deduction. Results and Conclusion Currently, 'new' health challenges and educational needs as a result of the globalisation process are discussed and linked to the evolving term 'global health'. The lack of a common definition of this term complicates attempts to analyse global health in the field of education. The proposed GHE framework addresses these problems and presents a set of key characteristics of education in this field. The framework builds on the models of 'social determinants of health' and 'globalisation and health' and is oriented towards 'health for all' and 'health equity'. It provides an action-oriented construct for a bottom-up engagement with global health by the health workforce. Ten indicators are deduced for use in monitoring and evaluation. PMID:21501519

Floods in 2002 and 2013: comparing flood warnings and emergency measures from the perspective of affected parties

Science.gov (United States)

Kreibich, Heidi; Pech, Ina; Schröter, Kai; Müller, Meike; Thieken, Annegret

2016-04-01

Early warning is essential for protecting people and mitigating damage in case of flood events. However, early warning is only helpful if the flood-endangered parties are reached by the warning and if they know how to react effectively. Finding suitable methods for communicating helpful warnings to the "last mile" remains a challenge, but not much information is available. Surveys were undertaken after the August 2002 and the June 2013 floods in Germany, asking affected private households and companies about warnings they received and emergency measures they undertook. Results show, that in 2002 early warning did not work well: in too many areas warnings came too late or were too imprecise and many people (27%) and companies (45%) did not receive a flood warning. Afterwards, the warning systems were significantly improved, so that in 2013 only a small share of the affected people (7%) and companies (7 %) was not reached by any warning. Additionally, private households and companies were hardly aware of the flood risk in the Elbe catchment before 2002, mainly due to a lack of flood experience. For instance, in 2002 only 14% of private households clearly knew how to protect themselves and their assets when the warning reached them, in 2013 this fraction was 46 %. Although the share of companies which had an emergency plan in place had increased from 10 % in 2002 to 26 % in 2013, and the share of those conducting regular emergency exercises had increased from 4 % to 13 %, there is still plenty of room for improvement. Therefore, integrated early warning systems from monitoring through to the reaction of the affected parties as well as effective risk and emergency communication need continuous further improvement to protect people and mitigate residual risks in case of floods.

Medium Range Flood Forecasting for Agriculture Damage Reduction

Science.gov (United States)

Fakhruddin, S. H. M.

2014-12-01

Early warning is a key element for disaster risk reduction. In recent decades, major advancements have been made in medium range and seasonal flood forecasting. This progress provides a great opportunity to reduce agriculture damage and improve advisories for early action and planning for flood hazards. This approach can facilitate proactive rather than reactive management of the adverse consequences of floods. In the agricultural sector, for instance, farmers can take a diversity of options such as changing cropping patterns, applying fertilizer, irrigating and changing planting timing. An experimental medium range (1-10 day) flood forecasting model has been developed for Bangladesh and Thailand. It provides 51 sets of discharge ensemble forecasts of 1-10 days with significant persistence and high certainty. This type of forecast could assist farmers and other stakeholders for differential preparedness activities. These ensembles probabilistic flood forecasts have been customized based on user-needs for community-level application focused on agriculture system. The vulnerabilities of agriculture system were calculated based on exposure, sensitivity and adaptive capacity. Indicators for risk and vulnerability assessment were conducted through community consultations. The forecast lead time requirement, user-needs, impacts and management options for crops were identified through focus group discussions, informal interviews and community surveys. This paper illustrates potential applications of such ensembles for probabilistic medium range flood forecasts in a way that is not commonly practiced globally today.

Flood Forecasting Based on TIGGE Precipitation Ensemble Forecast

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Jinyin Ye

2016-01-01

Full Text Available TIGGE (THORPEX International Grand Global Ensemble was a major part of the THORPEX (Observing System Research and Predictability Experiment. It integrates ensemble precipitation products from all the major forecast centers in the world and provides systematic evaluation on the multimodel ensemble prediction system. Development of meteorologic-hydrologic coupled flood forecasting model and early warning model based on the TIGGE precipitation ensemble forecast can provide flood probability forecast, extend the lead time of the flood forecast, and gain more time for decision-makers to make the right decision. In this study, precipitation ensemble forecast products from ECMWF, NCEP, and CMA are used to drive distributed hydrologic model TOPX. We focus on Yi River catchment and aim to build a flood forecast and early warning system. The results show that the meteorologic-hydrologic coupled model can satisfactorily predict the flow-process of four flood events. The predicted occurrence time of peak discharges is close to the observations. However, the magnitude of the peak discharges is significantly different due to various performances of the ensemble prediction systems. The coupled forecasting model can accurately predict occurrence of the peak time and the corresponding risk probability of peak discharge based on the probability distribution of peak time and flood warning, which can provide users a strong theoretical foundation and valuable information as a promising new approach.

Improving global detection of volcanic eruptions using the Ozone Monitoring Instrument (OMI

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

V. J. B. Flower

2016-11-01

Full Text Available Volcanic eruptions pose an ever-present threat to human populations around the globe, but many active volcanoes remain poorly monitored. In regions where ground-based monitoring is present the effects of volcanic eruptions can be moderated through observational alerts to both local populations and service providers, such as air traffic control. However, in regions where volcano monitoring is limited satellite-based remote sensing provides a global data source that can be utilised to provide near-real-time identification of volcanic activity. This paper details a volcanic plume detection method capable of identifying smaller eruptions than is currently feasible, which could potentially be incorporated into automated volcanic alert systems. This method utilises daily, global observations of sulfur dioxide (SO2 by the Ozone Monitoring Instrument (OMI on NASA's Aura satellite. Following identification and classification of known volcanic eruptions in 2005–2009, the OMI SO2 data, analysed using a logistic regression analysis, permitted the correct classification of volcanic events with an overall accuracy of over 80 %. Accurate volcanic plume identification was possible when lower-tropospheric SO2 loading exceeded ∼ 400 t. The accuracy and minimal user input requirements of the developed procedure provide a basis for incorporation into automated SO2 alert systems.

The Creation of Differential Correction Systems and the Systems of Global Navigation Satellite System Monitoring

National Research Council Canada - National Science Library

Polishchuk, G. M; Kozlov, V. I; Urlichich, Y. M; Dvorkin, V. V; Gvozdev, V. V

2002-01-01

... for the Russian Federation and a system of global navigation satellite system monitoring. These projects are some of the basic ones in the Federal program "Global Navigation System," aimed at maintenance and development of the GLONASS system...

A Methodology to Define Flood Resilience

Science.gov (United States)

Tourbier, J.

2012-04-01

structures such as levies, demountable structures that are partially installed, temporary structures that are removable, as well as dry- and` wet floodproofing of structures to meet construction standards to deflect or resist pressure without breaking. (3)SOCIAL FLOOD RESILIENCE referring to the building of robust institutions (including NGO's) and governance systems that underpin our capacity to prepare for and cope with uncertainty, change, and disasters when they occur. (4) FLOOD RISK RESILIENCE implies the ability to withstand and recover from crises through financial insurance assistance and through assistance by governmental institutions, including the communication of information on floodproofing steps that individuals can take on their own. Within these four levels considerations are outlined to form categories within a matrix as a way to set planning priorities by considering existing conditions, to formulate goals and to develop concepts. The matrix can function as indicators of success for a pre-and post-project assessment. A clear formulation of goals is an essential first step in the planning process, and a pre-requisite for the monitoring of performance. Policy makers would be involved in an active policy process, which has been called "a learning and action alliance to build capacity for flood resilience.

Should seasonal rainfall forecasts be used for flood preparedness?

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

E. Coughlan de Perez

2017-09-01

Full Text Available In light of strong encouragement for disaster managers to use climate services for flood preparation, we question whether seasonal rainfall forecasts should indeed be used as indicators of the likelihood of flooding. Here, we investigate the primary indicators of flooding at the seasonal timescale across sub-Saharan Africa. Given the sparsity of hydrological observations, we input bias-corrected reanalysis rainfall into the Global Flood Awareness System to identify seasonal indicators of floodiness. Results demonstrate that in some regions of western, central, and eastern Africa with typically wet climates, even a perfect tercile forecast of seasonal total rainfall would provide little to no indication of the seasonal likelihood of flooding. The number of extreme events within a season shows the highest correlations with floodiness consistently across regions. Otherwise, results vary across climate regimes: floodiness in arid regions in southern and eastern Africa shows the strongest correlations with seasonal average soil moisture and seasonal total rainfall. Floodiness in wetter climates of western and central Africa and Madagascar shows the strongest relationship with measures of the intensity of seasonal rainfall. Measures of rainfall patterns, such as the length of dry spells, are least related to seasonal floodiness across the continent. Ultimately, identifying the drivers of seasonal flooding can be used to improve forecast information for flood preparedness and to avoid misleading decision-makers.

Global scenarios and trends

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

2011-01-01

The 21st century brings with it a number of disturbing challenges. They may even threaten to disrupt world order. Many agree the most critical and urgent challenge of all confronting human kind today is climate change. Global warming has reached a level which can trigger drastic shifts in world weather. There is convincing evidence to show that global warming is significantly attributed to mans own activities. If man is responsible for the warming of the planet, then only man can help stop global warming. Only man can reverse climate change. Climate change has the power to literally destruct the world. The adverse effects of global climate change are increasingly evident from the frequency and ferocity of natural disasters like the recent severe drought and flood in Queensland, Australia; the prolonged drought in East Africa; the destructive typhoon Nargis in Myanmar; the terrifying hurricane Katrina which brought New Orleans to its knees; the disastrous Mississippi flood and killer cyclones in USA and the out of season drought and flood in the Yangtze river basin. The list does not end there. Dr. R. K. Pachauri, Chairman of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), in his lecture on 28 April 2011 at UNITEN, entitled Fukushima, Energy and Climate Change reaffirmed that the warming of the earths climate system is unequivocal. That climate change is mans common enemy is no longer in doubt. This is the reason why many see climate change as the single most important driver of the expanding global interest in green technology and a low carbon economy. (author)

Flood Risk Assessment as a Part of Integrated Flood and Drought Analysis. Case Study: Southern Thailand

Science.gov (United States)

Prabnakorn, Saowanit; Suryadi, Fransiscus X.; de Fraiture, Charlotte

2015-04-01

Flood and drought are two main meteorological catastrophes that have created adverse consequences to more than 80% of total casualties universally, 50% by flood and 31% by drought. Those natural hazards have the tendency of increasing frequency and degree of severity and it is expected that climate change will exacerbate their occurrences and impacts. In addition, growing population and society interference are the other key factors that pressure on and exacerbate the adverse impacts. Consequently, nowadays, the loss from any disasters becomes less and less acceptable bringing about more people's consciousness on mitigation measures and management strategies and policies. In general, due to the difference in their inherent characteristics and time occurrences flood and drought mitigation and protection have been separately implemented, managed, and supervised by different group of authorities. Therefore, the objective of this research is to develop an integrated mitigation measure or a management policy able to surmount both problems to acceptable levels and is conveniently monitored by the same group of civil servants which will be economical in both short- and long-term. As aforementioned of the distinction of fundamental peculiarities and occurrence, the assessment processes of floods and droughts are separately performed using their own specific techniques. In the first part of the research flood risk assessment is focused in order to delineate the flood prone area. The study area is a river plain in southern Thailand where flooding is influenced by monsoon and depression. The work is mainly concentrated on physically-based computational modeling and an assortment of tools was applied for: data completion, areal rainfall interpolation, statistical distribution, rainfall-runoff analysis and flow model simulation. The outcome from the simulation can be concluded that the flood prone areas susceptible to inundation are along the riparian areas, particularly at the

Efficient pan-European river flood hazard modelling through a combination of statistical and physical models

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Paprotny, D.; Morales Napoles, O.; Jonkman, S.N.

2017-01-01

Flood hazard is currently being researched on continental and global scales, using models of increasing complexity. In this paper we investigate a different, simplified approach, which combines statistical and physical models in place of conventional rainfall-run-off models to carry out flood

Making Supply Chains Resilient to Floods Using a Bayesian Network

Science.gov (United States)

Haraguchi, M.

2015-12-01

Natural hazards distress the global economy by disrupting the interconnected supply chain networks. Manufacturing companies have created cost-efficient supply chains by reducing inventories, streamlining logistics and limiting the number of suppliers. As a result, today's supply chains are profoundly susceptible to systemic risks. In Thailand, for example, the GDP growth rate declined by 76 % in 2011 due to prolonged flooding. Thailand incurred economic damage including the loss of USD 46.5 billion, approximately 70% of which was caused by major supply chain disruptions in the manufacturing sector. Similar problems occurred after the Great East Japan Earthquake and Tsunami in 2011, the Mississippi River floods and droughts during 2011 - 2013, and Hurricane Sandy in 2012. This study proposes a methodology for modeling supply chain disruptions using a Bayesian network analysis (BNA) to estimate expected values of countermeasures of floods, such as inventory management, supplier management and hard infrastructure management. We first performed a spatio-temporal correlation analysis between floods and extreme precipitation data for the last 100 years at a global scale. Then we used a BNA to create synthetic networks that include variables associated with the magnitude and duration of floods, major components of supply chains and market demands. We also included decision variables of countermeasures that would mitigate potential losses caused by supply chain disruptions. Finally, we conducted a cost-benefit analysis by estimating the expected values of these potential countermeasures while conducting a sensitivity analysis. The methodology was applied to supply chain disruptions caused by the 2011 Thailand floods. Our study demonstrates desirable typical data requirements for the analysis, such as anonymized supplier network data (i.e. critical dependencies, vulnerability information of suppliers) and sourcing data(i.e. locations of suppliers, and production rates and

Impacts of extreme flooding on riverbank filtration water quality.

Science.gov (United States)

Ascott, M J; Lapworth, D J; Gooddy, D C; Sage, R C; Karapanos, I

2016-06-01

Riverbank filtration schemes form a significant component of public water treatment processes on a global level. Understanding the resilience and water quality recovery of these systems following severe flooding is critical for effective water resources management under potential future climate change. This paper assesses the impact of floodplain inundation on the water quality of a shallow aquifer riverbank filtration system and how water quality recovers following an extreme (1 in 17 year, duration >70 days, 7 day inundation) flood event. During the inundation event, riverbank filtrate water quality is dominated by rapid direct recharge and floodwater infiltration (high fraction of surface water, dissolved organic carbon (DOC) >140% baseline values, >1 log increase in micro-organic contaminants, microbial detects and turbidity, low specific electrical conductivity (SEC) 400% baseline). A rapid recovery is observed in water quality with most floodwater impacts only observed for 2-3 weeks after the flooding event and a return to normal groundwater conditions within 6 weeks (lower fraction of surface water, higher SEC, lower DOC, organic and microbial detects, DO). Recovery rates are constrained by the hydrogeological site setting, the abstraction regime and the water quality trends at site boundary conditions. In this case, increased abstraction rates and a high transmissivity aquifer facilitate rapid water quality recoveries, with longer term trends controlled by background river and groundwater qualities. Temporary reductions in abstraction rates appear to slow water quality recoveries. Flexible operating regimes such as the one implemented at this study site are likely to be required if shallow aquifer riverbank filtration systems are to be resilient to future inundation events. Development of a conceptual understanding of hydrochemical boundaries and site hydrogeology through monitoring is required to assess the suitability of a prospective riverbank filtration

Flooding and mental health: a systematic mapping review.

Science.gov (United States)

Fernandez, Ana; Black, John; Jones, Mairwen; Wilson, Leigh; Salvador-Carulla, Luis; Astell-Burt, Thomas; Black, Deborah

2015-01-01

Floods are the most common type of global natural disaster. Floods have a negative impact on mental health. Comprehensive evaluation and review of the literature are lacking. To systematically map and review available scientific evidence on mental health impacts of floods caused by extended periods of heavy rain in river catchments. We performed a systematic mapping review of published scientific literature in five languages for mixed studies on floods and mental health. PUBMED and Web of Science were searched to identify all relevant articles from 1994 to May 2014 (no restrictions). The electronic search strategy identified 1331 potentially relevant papers. Finally, 83 papers met the inclusion criteria. Four broad areas are identified: i) the main mental health disorders-post-traumatic stress disorder, depression and anxiety; ii] the factors associated with mental health among those affected by floods; iii) the narratives associated with flooding, which focuses on the long-term impacts of flooding on mental health as a consequence of the secondary stressors; and iv) the management actions identified. The quantitative and qualitative studies have consistent findings. However, very few studies have used mixed methods to quantify the size of the mental health burden as well as exploration of in-depth narratives. Methodological limitations include control of potential confounders and short-term follow up. Floods following extreme events were excluded from our review. Although the level of exposure to floods has been systematically associated with mental health problems, the paucity of longitudinal studies and lack of confounding controls precludes strong conclusions. We recommend that future research in this area include mixed-method studies that are purposefully designed, using more rigorous methods. Studies should also focus on vulnerable groups and include analyses of policy and practical responses.

Flooding and Mental Health: A Systematic Mapping Review

Science.gov (United States)

Fernandez, Ana; Black, John; Jones, Mairwen; Wilson, Leigh; Salvador-Carulla, Luis; Astell-Burt, Thomas; Black, Deborah

2015-01-01

Background Floods are the most common type of global natural disaster. Floods have a negative impact on mental health. Comprehensive evaluation and review of the literature are lacking. Objective To systematically map and review available scientific evidence on mental health impacts of floods caused by extended periods of heavy rain in river catchments. Methods We performed a systematic mapping review of published scientific literature in five languages for mixed studies on floods and mental health. PUBMED and Web of Science were searched to identify all relevant articles from 1994 to May 2014 (no restrictions). Results The electronic search strategy identified 1331 potentially relevant papers. Finally, 83 papers met the inclusion criteria. Four broad areas are identified: i) the main mental health disorders—post-traumatic stress disorder, depression and anxiety; ii] the factors associated with mental health among those affected by floods; iii) the narratives associated with flooding, which focuses on the long-term impacts of flooding on mental health as a consequence of the secondary stressors; and iv) the management actions identified. The quantitative and qualitative studies have consistent findings. However, very few studies have used mixed methods to quantify the size of the mental health burden as well as exploration of in-depth narratives. Methodological limitations include control of potential confounders and short-term follow up. Limitations Floods following extreme events were excluded from our review. Conclusions Although the level of exposure to floods has been systematically associated with mental health problems, the paucity of longitudinal studies and lack of confounding controls precludes strong conclusions. Implications We recommend that future research in this area include mixed-method studies that are purposefully designed, using more rigorous methods. Studies should also focus on vulnerable groups and include analyses of policy and practical

Application of Flood Nomograph for Flood Forecasting in Urban Areas

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Eui Hoon Lee

2018-01-01

Full Text Available Imperviousness has increased due to urbanization, as has the frequency of extreme rainfall events by climate change. Various countermeasures, such as structural and nonstructural measures, are required to prepare for these effects. Flood forecasting is a representative nonstructural measure. Flood forecasting techniques have been developed for the prevention of repetitive flood damage in urban areas. It is difficult to apply some flood forecasting techniques using training processes because training needs to be applied at every usage. The other flood forecasting techniques that use rainfall data predicted by radar are not appropriate for small areas, such as single drainage basins. In this study, a new flood forecasting technique is suggested to reduce flood damage in urban areas. The flood nomograph consists of the first flooding nodes in rainfall runoff simulations with synthetic rainfall data at each duration. When selecting the first flooding node, the initial amount of synthetic rainfall is 1 mm, which increases in 1 mm increments until flooding occurs. The advantage of this flood forecasting technique is its simple application using real-time rainfall data. This technique can be used to prepare a preemptive response in the process of urban flood management.

Tree mortality in response to typhoon-induced floods and mudslides is determined by tree species, size, and position in a riparian Formosan gum forest in subtropical Taiwan

Science.gov (United States)

Tzeng, Hsy-Yu; Wang, Wei; Tseng, Yen-Hsueh; Chiu, Ching-An; Kuo, Chu-Chia

2018-01-01

Global warming-induced extreme climatic changes have increased the frequency of severe typhoons bringing heavy rains; this has considerably affected the stability of the forest ecosystems. Since the Taiwan 921 earthquake occurred in 21 September 1999, the mountain geology of the Island of Taiwan has become unstable and typhoon-induced floods and mudslides have changed the topography and geomorphology of the area; this has further affected the stability and functions of the riparian ecosystem. In this study, the vegetation of the unique Aowanda Formosan gum forest in Central Taiwan was monitored for 3 years after the occurrence of floods and mudslides during 2009–2011. Tree growth and survival, effects of floods and mudslides, and factors influencing tree survival were investigated. We hypothesized that (1) the effects of floods on the survival are significantly different for each tree species; (2) tree diameter at breast height (DBH) affects tree survival–i.e., the larger the DBH, the higher the survival rate; and (3) the relative position of trees affects tree survival after disturbances by floods and mudslides–the farther trees are from the river, the higher is their survival rate. Our results showed that after floods and mudslides, the lifespans of the major tree species varied significantly. Liquidambar formosana displayed the highest flood tolerance, and the trunks of Lagerstoemia subcostata began rooting after disturbances. Multiple regression analysis indicated that factors such as species, DBH, distance from sampled tree to the above boundary of sample plot (far from the riverbank), and distance from the upstream of the river affected the lifespans of trees; the three factors affected each tree species to different degrees. Furthermore, we showed that insect infestation had a critical role in determining tree survival rate. Our 3-year monitoring investigation revealed that severe typhoon-induced floods and mudslides disturbed the riparian vegetation

Tree mortality in response to typhoon-induced floods and mudslides is determined by tree species, size, and position in a riparian Formosan gum forest in subtropical Taiwan.

Science.gov (United States)

Tzeng, Hsy-Yu; Wang, Wei; Tseng, Yen-Hsueh; Chiu, Ching-An; Kuo, Chu-Chia; Tsai, Shang-Te

2018-01-01

Global warming-induced extreme climatic changes have increased the frequency of severe typhoons bringing heavy rains; this has considerably affected the stability of the forest ecosystems. Since the Taiwan 921 earthquake occurred in 21 September 1999, the mountain geology of the Island of Taiwan has become unstable and typhoon-induced floods and mudslides have changed the topography and geomorphology of the area; this has further affected the stability and functions of the riparian ecosystem. In this study, the vegetation of the unique Aowanda Formosan gum forest in Central Taiwan was monitored for 3 years after the occurrence of floods and mudslides during 2009-2011. Tree growth and survival, effects of floods and mudslides, and factors influencing tree survival were investigated. We hypothesized that (1) the effects of floods on the survival are significantly different for each tree species; (2) tree diameter at breast height (DBH) affects tree survival-i.e., the larger the DBH, the higher the survival rate; and (3) the relative position of trees affects tree survival after disturbances by floods and mudslides-the farther trees are from the river, the higher is their survival rate. Our results showed that after floods and mudslides, the lifespans of the major tree species varied significantly. Liquidambar formosana displayed the highest flood tolerance, and the trunks of Lagerstoemia subcostata began rooting after disturbances. Multiple regression analysis indicated that factors such as species, DBH, distance from sampled tree to the above boundary of sample plot (far from the riverbank), and distance from the upstream of the river affected the lifespans of trees; the three factors affected each tree species to different degrees. Furthermore, we showed that insect infestation had a critical role in determining tree survival rate. Our 3-year monitoring investigation revealed that severe typhoon-induced floods and mudslides disturbed the riparian vegetation in the

Monitoring of levees, bridges, pipelines, and other critical infrastructure during the 2011 flooding in the Mississippi River Basin: Chapter J in 2011 floods of the central United States

Science.gov (United States)

Densmore, Brenda K.; Burton, Bethany L.; Dietsch, Benjamin J.; Cannia, James C.; Huizinga, Richard J.

2014-01-01

During the 2011 Mississippi River Basin flood, the U.S. Geological Survey evaluated aspects of critical river infrastructure at the request of and in support of local, State, and Federal Agencies. Geotechnical and hydrographic data collected by the U.S. Geological Survey at numerous locations were able to provide needed information about 2011 flood effects to those managing the critical infrastructure. These data were collected and processed in a short time frame to provide managers the ability to make a timely evaluation of the safety of the infrastructure and, when needed, to take action to secure and protect critical infrastructure. Critical infrastructure surveyed by the U.S. Geological Survey included levees, bridges, pipeline crossings, power plant intakes and outlets, and an electrical transmission tower. Capacitively coupled resistivity data collected along the flood-protection levees surrounding the Omaha Public Power District Nebraska City power plant (Missouri River Levee Unit R573), mapped the near-subsurface electrical properties of the levee and the materials immediately below it. The near-subsurface maps provided a better understanding of the levee construction and the nature of the lithology beneath the levee. Comparison of the capacitively coupled resistivity surveys and soil borings indicated that low-resistivity value material composing the levee generally is associated with lean clay and silt to about 2 to 4 meters below the surface, overlying a more resistive layer associated with sand deposits. In general, the resistivity structure becomes more resistive to the south and the southern survey sections correlate well with the borehole data that indicate thinner clay and silt at the surface and thicker sand sequences at depth in these sections. With the resistivity data Omaha Public Power District could focus monitoring efforts on areas with higher resistivity values (coarser-grained deposits or more loosely compacted section), which typically are

Effective delineation of urban flooded areas based on aerial ortho-photo imagery

Science.gov (United States)

Zhang, Ying; Guindon, Bert; Raymond, Don; Hong, Gang

2016-10-01

The combination of rapid global urban growth and climate change has resulted in increased occurrence of major urban flood events across the globe. The distribution of flooded area is one of the key information layers for applications of emergency planning and response management. While SAR systems and technologies have been widely used for flood area delineation, radar images suffer from range ambiguities arising from corner reflection effects and shadowing in dense urban settings. A new mapping framework is proposed for the extraction and quantification of flood extent based on aerial optical multi-spectral imagery and ancillary data. This involves first mapping of flood areas directly visible to the sensor. Subsequently, the complete area of submergence is estimated from this initial mapping and inference techniques based on baseline data such as land cover and GIS information such as available digital elevation models. The methodology has been tested and proven effective using aerial photography for the case of the 2013 flood in Calgary, Canada.

Probabilistic mapping of flood-induced backscatter changes in SAR time series

Science.gov (United States)

Schlaffer, Stefan; Chini, Marco; Giustarini, Laura; Matgen, Patrick

2017-04-01

The information content of flood extent maps can be increased considerably by including information on the uncertainty of the flood area delineation. This additional information can be of benefit in flood forecasting and monitoring. Furthermore, flood probability maps can be converted to binary maps showing flooded and non-flooded areas by applying a threshold probability value pF = 0.5. In this study, a probabilistic change detection approach for flood mapping based on synthetic aperture radar (SAR) time series is proposed. For this purpose, conditional probability density functions (PDFs) for land and open water surfaces were estimated from ENVISAT ASAR Wide Swath (WS) time series containing >600 images using a reference mask of permanent water bodies. A pixel-wise harmonic model was used to account for seasonality in backscatter from land areas caused by soil moisture and vegetation dynamics. The approach was evaluated for a large-scale flood event along the River Severn, United Kingdom. The retrieved flood probability maps were compared to a reference flood mask derived from high-resolution aerial imagery by means of reliability diagrams. The obtained performance measures indicate both high reliability and confidence although there was a slight under-estimation of the flood extent, which may in part be attributed to topographically induced radar shadows along the edges of the floodplain. Furthermore, the results highlight the importance of local incidence angle for the separability between flooded and non-flooded areas as specular reflection properties of open water surfaces increase with a more oblique viewing geometry.

Increasing flood exposure in the Netherlands: implications for risk financing

Science.gov (United States)

Jongman, B.; Koks, E. E.; Husby, T. G.; Ward, P. J.

2014-05-01

The effectiveness of disaster risk management and financing mechanisms depends on an accurate assessment of current and future hazard exposure. The increasing availability of detailed data offers policy makers and the insurance sector new opportunities to understand trends in risk, and to make informed decisions on ways to deal with these trends. In this paper we show how comprehensive property level information can be used for the assessment of exposure to flooding on a national scale, and how this information provides valuable input to discussions on possible risk financing practices. The case study used is the Netherlands, which is one of the countries most exposed to flooding globally, and which is currently undergoing a debate on strategies for the compensation of potential losses. Our results show that flood exposure has increased rapidly between 1960 and 2012, and that the growth of the building stock and its economic value in flood-prone areas has been higher than in non-flood-prone areas. We also find that property values in flood-prone areas are lower than those in non-flood-prone areas. We argue that the increase in the share of economic value located in potential flood-prone areas can have a negative effect on the feasibility of private insurance schemes in the Netherlands. The methodologies and results presented in this study are relevant for many regions around the world where the effects of rising flood exposure create a challenge for risk financing.

Combining eddy-covariance measurements and Penman-Monteith type models to estimate evapotranspiration of flooded and aerobic rice

Science.gov (United States)

Facchi, Arianna; Masseroni, Daniele; Gharsallah, Olfa; Gandolfi, Claudio

2014-05-01

Rice is of great importance both from a food supply point of view, since it represents the main food in the diet of over half the world's population, and from a water resources point of view, since it consumes almost 40% of the water amount used for irrigation. About 90% of global production takes place in Asia, while European production is quantitatively modest (about 3 million tons). However, Italy is the Europe's leading producer, with over half of total production, almost totally concentrated in a large traditional paddy rice area between the Lombardy and Piedmont regions, in the north-western part of the country. In this area, irrigation of rice is traditionally carried out by continuous flooding. The high water requirement of this irrigation regime encourages the introduction of water saving irrigation practices, as flood irrigation after sowing in dry soil and intermittent irrigation (aerobic rice). In the agricultural season 2013 an intense monitoring activity was conducted on three experimental fields located in the Padana plain (northern Italy) and characterized by different irrigation regimes (traditional flood irrigation, flood irrigation after sowing in dry soil, intermittent irrigation), with the aim of comparing the water balance terms for the three irrigation treatments. Actual evapotranspiration (ET) is one of the terms, but, unlike others water balance components, its field monitoring requires expensive instrumentation. This work explores the possibility of using only one eddy covariance system and Penman-Monteith (PM) type models for the determination of ET fluxes for the three irrigation regimes. An eddy covariance station was installed on the levee between the traditional flooded and the aerobic rice fields, to contemporaneously monitor the ET fluxes from this two treatments as a function of the wind direction. A detailed footprint analysis was conducted - through the application of three different analytical models - to determine the position

A global change data base using thematic mapper data: Earth monitoring educational system (EMES)

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

D'Antoni, H.L.; Peterson, D.L.

1992-01-01

The creation of an Earth Monitoring Educational System integrated with the research interests of NASA Ames Research Center and one or more university schools is proposed. This would be a first step in a new educational system at an international scale. Based on the integration of a global network of cooperators to build a global data base for assessments of global change, the EMES will promote AS, BS, MS and PhDs in global ecology at associated universities and colleges, and extra-curricular courses for multilevel audiences. These would range as appropriate from ministers to resource managers to students. Both programs will be conducted under a systemic approach, through active learning, coordination and correlation practices. They will be aimed to: (1) train specialists, (2) establish a tradition of solving regional problems concerning global change in a systemic manner, using remote sensing technology as the monitoring tool, and (3) transfer knowledge on global change to the national and world communities. The main goal of the extra-curricular courses would be to provide readily usable knowledge to the decision-making levels of all the participant countries and institutions. South America is proposed as the pilot continent for the project. This work is consistent with the educational goals of the International Space year in 1992

TOVS data analysis during the catastrophic floods of Bangladesh of 1987 and 1988 and Cyclone of 1985

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Choudhury, A.M.

1990-08-01

Bangladesh has witnessed catastrophic floods in recent years so much so that in 1988 two-thirds of the country was flooded. This had created a world-wide attention. NOAA AVHRR and LANDSAT TM data have been analyzed to monitor floods. TOVS data prior to flooding, have also been analyzed to find out the causes of abnormal rainfall in the catchment area, responsible for flooding. TOVS data of the cyclone of 25 May 1985 which hit Bangladesh have also been analyzed. Satellite imagery can be very effectively used in the early warning of floods and cyclones. (author). 4 refs

Flood risk management in the Souss watershed

Science.gov (United States)

Bouaakkaz, Brahim; El Abidine El Morjani, Zine; Bouchaou, Lhoussaine; Elhimri, Hamza

2018-05-01

Flooding is the most devasting natural hazards that causes more damage throughout the world. In 2016, for the fourth year in a row, it was the most costly natural disaster, in terms of global economic losses: 62 billion, according to a Benfield's 2016 annual report on climate and natural disasters [1]. The semi-arid to arid Souss watershed is vulnerable to floods, whose the intensity is becoming increasingly alarming and this area does not escape to the effects of this extreme event.. Indeed, the susceptibility of this region to this type of hazard is accentuated by its rapid evolution in terms of demography, uncontrolled land use, anthropogenic actions (uncontrolled urbanization, encroachment of the hydraulic public domain, overgrazing, clearing and deforestation).), and physical behavior of the environment (higher slope, impermeable rocks, etc.). It is in this context, that we have developed a strategic plan of action to manage this risk in the Souss basin in order to reduce the human, economic and environmental losses, after the modeling of the flood hazard in the study area, using georeferenced information systems (GIS), satellite remote sensing space and multi-criteria analysis techniques, as well as the history of major floods. This study, which generated the high resolution 30m flood hazard spatial distribution map of with accuracy of 85%, represents a decision tool to identify and prioririze area with high probability of hazard occurrence. It can also serve as a basis for urban evacuation plans for anticipating and preventing flood risk in the region, in order to ovoid any dramatic disaster.

WiP abstract: Optimal multi-agent path planning for fast inverse modeling in UAV-based flood sensing applications

KAUST Repository

Abdelkader, Mohamed; Shaqura, Mohammad; Ghommem, Mehdi; Collier, Nathan O.; Calo, Victor M.; Claudel, Christian G.

2014-01-01

Floods are one of the most commonly occurring natural disasters, and caused more than 120,000 fatalities in the world between 1991 and 2005. Most of these casualties are caused by the lack of a reliable real-time flash flood monitoring system. Given the area to monitor, unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) appear as the most promising solutions for this task. © 2014 IEEE.

WiP abstract: Optimal multi-agent path planning for fast inverse modeling in UAV-based flood sensing applications

KAUST Repository

Abdelkader, Mohamed

2014-04-01

Floods are one of the most commonly occurring natural disasters, and caused more than 120,000 fatalities in the world between 1991 and 2005. Most of these casualties are caused by the lack of a reliable real-time flash flood monitoring system. Given the area to monitor, unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) appear as the most promising solutions for this task. © 2014 IEEE.

Modeling and simulation of surfactant-polymer flooding using a new hybrid method