Saving a World Treasure: Protecting Florence from Flooding

The Committee Firenze 2016, on the occasion of the 50th anniversary of the tragic 1966 flood, invited six engineers and scientists to form an International Technical Scientific Committee (ITSC) to assess the current status of flood protection for the city of Florence and identify steps to reduce the risk of flooding facing the city. In this final Report, ITSC concludes that Florence remains at risk to significant flooding and this risk grows each day. It is not a question of whether a flood of the magnitude of 1966 or greater will occur, but when. In fact, the level of protection that exists in Florence now is not on a level appropriate to the citizens and treasures that rest within the city. If, under current conditions, a 1966-like flood occurred, the consequences to human lives, treasures, properties and community infrastructure could be much more catastrophic than they were in 1966

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

International audienceThe 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

Extreme rainstorms: Comparing regional envelope curves to stochastically generated events

The depth-duration envelope curves (DDECs) are regional upper bounds on observed rainfall maxima for several durations. Recently, a probabilistic interpretation has been proposed in the literature in order to associate a recurrence interval T to the DDECs and, consequently, to retrieve point rainfall quantiles for ungauged sites. Alternatively, extreme rainfall quantiles can be retrieved from long synthetic rainfall series obtained with stochastic rainfall generators calibrated to local time series of rainfall events. While DDECs are sensitive to outliers and data errors, the stochastic rainfall generator performance is affected by the limited record lengths used for calibration. The objective of this study is to assess the reliability of the two alternative methods by verifying if they give consistent results for a wide study region in Austria. Relative to previous studies, we propose some generalizations of the DDEC procedure in order to better represent the Austrian data. The comparison of rainfall quantiles estimated with the two methods for large T shows an excellent agreement for intermediate durations (from 1 to 6 h), while the agreement worsen for very short (15 min) and long (24 h) durations. The results are scrupulously analyzed and discussed in light of the exceptionality of rainfall events that set the regional envelopes and the characteristics of the stochastic generator used. Our study points out that the combined use of these regional and local methods can be very useful for estimating reliable point rainfall quantiles associated with large T within regions where many rain gauges are available, but with limited record lengths

Preface: HS01 - Changes in flood risk and perception in catchments and cities

Preface of the Editors to the volume: Changes in Flood Risk and Perception in Catchments and Cities

On the future of journal publications in hydrology

Editors from several journals in the field of hydrology met during the Assembly of the International Association of Hydrological Sciences in Gothenburg in July 2013 to share thoughts on the future of journal publishing in hydrology. The group of editors reviewed the current status of the journals and the publication process, and discussed future strategies for responding to changes in the global publication arena in a proactive way. In the meeting, a number of possible actions were identified to help strengthen journal publications and research in hydrology as a whole. These are communicated in this Joint Editorial published in the journals Hydrological Sciences Journal, Hydrology and Earth System Sciences, Hydrology Research, Journal of Hydrology, and Water Resources Research

Joint Editorial \u2013 On the future of journal publications in hydrology

Editors from several journals in the field of hydrology met during the Assembly of the International Association of Hydrological Sciences in Gothenburg in July 2013 to share thoughts on the future of journal publishing in hydrology. The group of Editors reviewed the current status of the journals and the publication process, and discussed future strategies for responding to changes in the global publication arena in a proactive way. In the meeting, a number of possible actions were identified to help strengthen journal publications and research in hydrology as a whole. These are communicated in this Joint Editorial published in the journals Hydrological Sciences Journal, Hydrology and Earth System Sciences, Hydrology Research, Journal of Hydrology, and Water Resources Research

Joint Editorial "On the future of journal publications in hydrology"

Editors from several journals in the field of hydrology met during the Assembly of the International Association of Hydrological Sciences in Gothenburg in July 2013 to share thoughts on the future of journal publishing in hydrology. The group of editors reviewed the current status of the journals and the publication process, and discussed future strategies for responding to changes in the global publication arena in a proactive way. In the meeting, a number of possible actions were identified to help strengthen journal publications and research in hydrology as a whole. These are communicated in this Joint Editorial published in the journals Hydrological Sciences Journal, Hydrology and Earth System Sciences, Hydrology Research, Journal of Hydrology, and Water Resources Research