De Maeyer, Ph.

Deckers, P.

Holvoet, K.

Reyns, J.

Vanneuville, W.

Open Marine Archive

  
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LATIS: THE TOOL FOR FLOOD RISK CALCULATIONS IN FLANDERS  
Deckers Pieter1, Johan Reyns1, Katrijn Holvoet2, Wouter Vanneuville2 and Philippe De Maeyer1 
1 CartoGIS Cluster, Department of Geography, Ghent University, Krijgslaan 281 S8,  
9000 Gent, Belgium 
E-mail: pieter.deckers@ugent.be  
2 Flanders Hydraulics Research (Waterbouwkundig Laboratorium, Departement Mobiliteit en 
Openbare Werken, Vlaamse Overheid), Berchemlei 115, 2140 Antwerpen, Belgium  
 
In Flanders’ recent history, flood events caused several times substantial damage to buildings and 
infrastructure. Those floods originated from small non navigable waters, small navigable rivers and 
even from the Scheldt, the Meuse or the North Sea (1953). Scientists predict that these flood events 
could even become more frequent and more dramatic in the future, as climate is changing and sea 
level is rising. In the past, the solution of Flemish water managers to prevent flooding was 
evacuating the water as fast as possible and heightening the dikes along the river banks, but 
experience showed that this was a far from ideal situation. Therefore, a new approach was 
proposed during the late 1990’s. The focus was no longer on protecting against all floods and the 
highest water levels, but changed to avoidance of serious economic damage. This meant that for 
the evaluation of different protection scenarios, a new objective methodology was needed to assess 
the damage, caused by floods, in a quantitative way.  
 
Therefore, Ghent University developed in cooperation with Flanders Hydraulics Research a risk-
based methodology. This methodology defines flood risk as the product of the probability of a flood 
event and the damage caused by that event. The damage is a function of the water depth and the 
maximal damage, which is dependent on the land use of the flooded area and the socio-economic 
context. In a second phase, this methodology was implemented in a tailor-made GIS-based flood 
risk assessment tool called LATIS. This tool integrates a variety of land use information and socio-
economic data with potential inundation maps to calculate the damage and risk of certain flooding 
events. In addition, LATIS is also able to calculate the casualties of a flood and the additional 
damage caused by high flow velocities. These high flow velocities cause collapse of buildings 
inducing much higher damage. Recently, a new module that specifically calculates the casualties 
and damage on the sea wall (which is a special situation because a lot of people and buildings are 
concentrated there) was also implemented in the software. 
 
In the past years, LATIS was used for several studies in Flanders, varying from assessments of the 
impact of different climate change scenarios on flood risk (Willems et al., 2009) to studies on 
coastal defence alternatives within the framework of the Integrated Masterplan for Flanders’ Coastal 
Safety (Mertens et al., 2008). In the near future, LATIS will continue to play an important role when 
Flanders will have to fulfil the requirements of the European Flood Directive (EU Commission, 2007). 
 
Keywords: Flood risk, risk calculations, GIS, LATIS 
 
References 
EU Commission, 2007. European Flood Directive, 2007/60/EG. 
Mertens T., P. De Wolf, T. Verwaest, K. Trouw, L. De Nocker and K. Couderé. 2008. An integrated 
master plan for Flanders future coastal safety. In: 31st International Conference on Coastal 
Engineering: Meeting Coastal Challenges, 31 August to 5 September 2008, Hamburg, Germany. 
Willems P., P. Deckers, Ph. De Maeyer, W. Vanneuville, J. Brouwers and B. Peeters. 2009. 
Wetenschappelijk rapport Klimaatverandering & water, Milieuverkenning MIRA-S 2009, VMM. 


LATIS: the tool for flood risk calculations in Flanders

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