Estimating Economic Loss from Flash Flooding: A Study of Porter County, IN

This project attempted to determine what kinds of losses occurred during the flash floods of September 2009, caused by Hurricane Ike, in Northwest Indiana. Flash floods are dangerous due to how quickly they can overtake humans, houses, vehicles, and property. Flash floods caused Northwest Indiana to be under a State of Emergency, with drastic human and economic losses. Discovering where the problem is and defining the problem can help to prevent future losses. In addition, geographic software was analyzed for its helpfulness for this kind of problem. It was found that current software, including FEMA\u27s HAZUS-FM, is not suitable for analyzing flash floods for a number of reasons. Adapting the software to flash flood parameters will be the most helpful adjustment for mitigating flood losses. This on-going project was presented at the 2011 Indiana Geographic Information Council Conference

Fact Sheet: Floods and Flash Floods, 2009

Mitigation pays. It includes any activities that prevent an emergency, reduce the chance of an emergency happening, or lessen the damaging effects of unavoidable emergencies. Investing in mitigation steps now such as constructing barriers such as levees and purchasing flood insurance will help reduce the amount of structural damage to your home and financial loss from building and crop damage should a flood or flash flood occur

Assessing the influence of the Merzbacher Lake outburst floods on discharge using the hydrological model SWIM in the Aksu headwaters, Kyrgyzstan/NW China

Glacial lake outburst floods (GLOF) often have a significant impact on downstream users. Including their effects in hydrological models, identifying past occurrences and assessing their potential impacts are challenges for hydrologists working in mountainous catchments. The regularly outbursting Merzbacher Lake is located in the headwaters of the Aksu River, the most important source of water discharge to the Tarim River, northwest China. Modelling its water resources and the evaluation of potential climate change impacts on river discharge are indispensable for projecting future water availability for the intensively cultivated river oases downstream of the Merzbacher Lake and along the Tarim River. The semi-distributed hydrological model SWIM was calibrated to the outlet station Xiehela on the Kumarik River, by discharge the largest tributary to the Aksu River. The glacial lake outburst floods add to the difficulties of modelling this high-mountain, heavily glaciated catchment with poor data coverage and quality. The aims of the study are to investigate the glacier lake outburst floods using a modelling tool. Results include a two-step model calibration of the Kumarik catchment, an approach for the identification of the outburst floods using the measured gauge data and the modelling results and estimations of the outburst flood volumes. Results show that a catchment model can inform GLOF investigations by providing ‘normal’ (i.e. without the outburst floods) catchment discharge. The comparison of the simulated and observed discharge proves the occurrence of GLOFs and highlights the influences of the GLOFs on the downstream water balance. © 2013 The Authors. Hydrological Processes Published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd

Geomorphology of Mountainous Deserts

The peculiar land forms of the desert are due largely (1) to the paucity of plant growth, in consequence of which (2) disintegrated rock, produced more by physical than by chemical processes, which (3) vary with rock nature (hence granitic rocks assume forms of special interest), does not remain near its source long enough in the earlier stages of erosion to be reduced to very fine texture before (4) it is carried by stream floods or sheet floods toward or to (5) playa basins of rising base-level; but in an advanced stage of the arid cycle (6) the playa surface may be lowered by the wind, whereupon the rock slopes previously weathered down to sheet-flood grade and buried with sheet-flood waste will be (7) trenched by stream floods with respect to the sinking baselevel, and the buried rock floors will be laid bare until again reduced to sheet-flood grade. But (8) in deserts draining to the ocean these various processes will work with respect to a relatively fixed baselevel; also (9) in deserts where the action of water floods is dominated by wind action, the carving of the surface will be in part independent of any baselevel

Flooding through the lens of mobile phone activity

Natural disasters affect hundreds of millions of people worldwide every year. Emergency response efforts depend upon the availability of timely information, such as information concerning the movements of affected populations. The analysis of aggregated and anonymized Call Detail Records (CDR) captured from the mobile phone infrastructure provides new possibilities to characterize human behavior during critical events. In this work, we investigate the viability of using CDR data combined with other sources of information to characterize the floods that occurred in Tabasco, Mexico in 2009. An impact map has been reconstructed using Landsat-7 images to identify the floods. Within this frame, the underlying communication activity signals in the CDR data have been analyzed and compared against rainfall levels extracted from data of the NASA-TRMM project. The variations in the number of active phones connected to each cell tower reveal abnormal activity patterns in the most affected locations during and after the floods that could be used as signatures of the floods - both in terms of infrastructure impact assessment and population information awareness. The representativeness of the analysis has been assessed using census data and civil protection records. While a more extensive validation is required, these early results suggest high potential in using cell tower activity information to improve early warning and emergency management mechanisms.Comment: Submitted to IEEE Global Humanitarian Technologies Conference (GHTC) 201

Comparative analysis of spring flood risk reduction measures in Alaska, United States and the Sakha Republic, Russia

Thesis (Ph.D.) University of Alaska Fairbanks, 2017River ice thaw and breakup are an annual springtime phenomena in the North. Depending on regional weather patterns and river morphology, breakups can result in catastrophic floods in exposed and vulnerable communities. Breakup flood risk is especially high in rural and remote northern communities, where flood relief and recovery are complicated by unique geographical and climatological features, and limited physical and communication infrastructure. Proactive spring flood management would significantly minimize the adverse impacts of spring floods. Proactive flood management entails flood risk reduction through advances in ice jam and flood prevention, forecasting and mitigation, and community preparedness. With the goal to identify best practices in spring flood risk reduction, I conducted a comparative case study between two flood-prone communities, Galena in Alaska, United States and Edeytsy in the Sakha Republic, Russia. Within a week from each other, Galena and Edeytsy sustained major floods in May 2013. Methods included focus groups with the representatives from flood managing agencies, surveys of families impacted by the 2013 floods, observations on site, and archival review. Comparative parameters of the study included natural and human causes of spring floods, effectiveness of spring flood mitigation and preparedness strategies, and the role of interagency communication and cooperation in flood risk reduction. The analysis revealed that spring flood risk in Galena and Edeytsy results from complex interactions among a series of natural processes and human actions that generate conditions of hazard, exposure, and vulnerability. Therefore, flood risk in Galena and Edeytsy can be reduced by managing conditions of ice-jam floods, and decreasing exposure and vulnerability of the at-risk populations. Implementing the Pressure and Release model to analyze the vulnerability progression of Edeytsy and Galena points to common root causes at the two research sites, including colonial heritage, unequal distribution of resources and power, top-down governance, and limited inclusion of local communities in the decision-making process. To construct an appropriate flood risk reduction framework it is important to establish a dialogue among the diverse stakeholders on potential solutions, arriving at a range of top-down and bottom-up initiatives and in conjunction selecting the appropriate strategies. Both communities have progressed in terms of greater awareness of the hazard, reduction in vulnerabilities, and a shift to more reliance on shelter-in-place. However, in neither community have needed improvements in levee protection been completed. Dialogue between outside authorities and the community begins earlier and is more intensive for Edeytsy, perhaps accounting for Edeytsy's more favorable rating of risk management and response than Galena's

PERENCANAAN KOLAM RETENSI SEBAGAI UPAYA PENGENDALIAN BANJIR PADA DAERAH ALIRAN SUNGAI WELANG PASURUAN

Floods are natural disasters that occur in major cities throughout Indonesia. The causes of floods can be attributed to various factors, including topography, high rainfall intensity, blockage of water channels, and so on. Flooding resulting from river overflow occurs almost every year in the Welang Pasuruan river basin. Retention ponds serve as flood control structures in urban areas. The function of retention ponds is to temporarily contain floods or serve as temporary storage during peak river flood times. When the river flow subsides, the water in the retention pond is returned to the river. The planning of retention ponds is expected to reduce the risks associated with flooding. By processing rainfall data for the past 10 years using the Log Pearson III Method, and calculating the planned flood discharge using the Nakayasu Synthetic Unit Hydrograph Method, the analysis of flow profiles is conducted using the HEC-RAS 6.3.1 program under existing conditions with the calculated Q10th. The peak flood discharge is calculated to be 635,531 m3/s with a required time of 4.5 hours to reach the peak, resulting in a river runoff of 3,300,796.49 m3. The total planned area for the retention pond is 398,642 m2 with a depth of 4.5 meters. The maximum storage capacity of the pond is calculated to be 1,793,889 m3, reducing the flood discharge by 1,506,907.491 m3, with a percentage of 54.35%. Therefore, the planning of this retention pond is highly effective in addressing the floods in the Welang River

A review of the processes and effects of droughts and summer floods in rivers and threats due to climate change on current adaptive strategies

Europe is expected to experience a greater frequency of floods and droughts as precipitation and evapotranspiration patterns are modified by climate change in future. Several large scale drought and flooding events have occurred in Europe since 2000. Studies of drought are rare but indicate important impacts on freshwater habitats, water quality, plants and animals, which may have wider consequences for ecosystem functioning. The main factors determining the impacts of droughts and floods are event duration and seasonality of the event. A diverse habitat distribution and the presence of refugia at the reach scale confer the most resilience against droughts and floods. Management measures will also be impacted particularly with regard to riparian zones, channel morphology, flow and floodplain connectivity. However there is a conflict between management actions that target the effects of drought, and those that target floods. This report reviews information on droughts and aseasonal floods (summer floods) published since 2000 with a principal focus on small lowland rivers. Using several recent (post 2000) reviews on these topics, we describe abiotic and biotic effects of droughts and floods, providing recent European examples where possible. We explain the current status of droughts and summer floods in Europe, and where the main sources of data can be found. We highlight the threats posed by these phenomena to some of the most common current adaptive management strategies in place in the EU. To this end we use measures already described within REFRESH under Deliverables 1.1 and 1.2, and we focused solely on adaptive measures relating to riparian zones, channel morphology, flow and floodplain connectivity

Managing disaster preparedness for institution of higher learning: A study in Perlis

Unprecedented floods disaster that hit Johore, Pahang, Terengganu and Kelantan was due to abnormal weather conditions. Heavy rain which fall continuously non stop for between 3 to 4 days has raised the water level in some areas to a height of 15 feet deep. The flood disasters have caused devastating loss of property and life and some 100,000 people were evacuated to flood relief centers. Some of the floods victim lost all their belonging and property. Flood disaster has also caused water borne diseases to prevail. The future is bleak for these flood victims. Continuous government assistance is needed for these flood victims who lost everything is needed. Year in and year out, the monsoon season have cause floods disaster especially in the east coast state and is now a yearly common phenomena. However, the level of awareness and preparedness among the Malaysian community and the government machinery is still questionably low. Presently, there are 18 public universities in the country, the issue is what is the level of awareness does students and staff of the university put on the issue of floods or other natural disaster? Do we at the University are ready to face disaster situations if it occur in the University? At this juncture, the experiences of UniMAP’s contribution to the University’s community, the local community vis-à-vis the Malaysian Mechanism Disaster Management and functioning alongside the state machinery of Perlis state government during 17 December 2005 flood disaster can be used as an example. The aim of this study is to examine the disaster preparedness in University and to propagate the importance of disaster preparedness among the students and staffs through education. This pilot project will be conducted through interviews, observations and surveys. It is expected that this study will shed some light for further effective implementation of disaster preparedness management

Sub-daily simulation of mountain flood processes based on the modified soil water assessment tool (SWAT) model

Floods not only provide a large amount of water resources, but they also cause serious disasters. Although there have been numerous hydrological studies on flood processes, most of these investigations were based on rainfall-type floods in plain areas. Few studies have examined high temporal resolution snowmelt floods in high-altitude mountainous areas. The Soil Water Assessment Tool (SWAT) model is a typical semi-distributed, hydrological model widely used in runoff and water quality simulations. The degree-day factor method used in SWAT utilizes only the average daily temperature as the criterion of snow melting and ignores the influence of accumulated temperature. Therefore, the influence of accumulated temperature on snowmelt was added by increasing the discriminating conditions of rain and snow, making that more suitable for the simulation of snowmelt processes in high-altitude mountainous areas. On the basis of the daily scale, the simulation of the flood process was modeled on an hourly scale. This research compared the results before and after the modification and revealed that the peak error decreased by 77% and the time error was reduced from +/- 11 h to +/- 1 h. This study provides an important reference for flood simulation and forecasting in mountainous areas