Flood means the temporary covering by water of land not normally convered by water ( 2007/60 EC). There are various flood types, which differs regarding to the water source (e.g. rainwater, groundwater, stream water) their duration (short (minutes to hours) or long (weeks to months)) or to their location (e.g. coastal floods). One possible classification of flood types is listed below: Flash ...
The utility of the concept of resiliency as a paradigm for managing society's ability to resist, absorb, and recover from extreme events is dependent upon the ability to evaluate a community's resilience and to assess the potential impacts of intentional and unintentional interventions. A framework for developing and using resilience metrics is presented. The critical components of resilience for ...
Scientists at the NOC and the University of Southampton have found that the majority of instances of coastal flooding around the United Kingdom in the last 100 years have been due to moderate storm events combined with high spring tides, rather than extreme storms. Researchers have undertaken one of the most detailed assessments of extreme sea level and coastal flooding ever carried out for the ...
This was the message of Mayor Will Sessoms from Virginia Beach, VA, delivered last Friday at a conference on “Adaptive Planning for Flooding and Coastal Change.” Like so many cities along the Atlantic coast, Virginia Beach is at the frontlines of climate change, experiencing impacts like sea-level rise and recurrent coastal flooding. But as we learned at the event, the city and its ...
Extreme weather events are on the rise in the United States and globally, with growing and costly disruptions to businesses, people’s livelihoods, and critical infrastructure. Hurricane Sandy is the most recent event to expose the vulnerability of the United States to extreme weather. This fact sheet highlights the historical magnitude of the storm and estimated losses, plus statements by ...
The Pearl River Delta (PRD) region has experienced rapid economic and population growth in the last three decades. The delta includes coastal megacities, such as Hong Kong. These low-lying urbanised coastal regions in the PRD are vulnerable to flood risks from unpredictable climatic conditions. These can result in increasing storm surges, rising sea level and intensified rainstorms causing ...
There has been a rapid growth in the field of remote sensing and its various applications in the area of water management. Nowadays, there are several remote sensing techniques that can be used as a source to derive bathymetry data along coastal areas. The key techniques are: sonar (sound navigating and ranging), LiDAR (light detection and ranging) and high-resolution satellite images. The ...
A simple relationship between sea level rise and the massive potential costs of future coastal flooding has been established by scientists in Germany. As sea levels rise, the damage to human economies rises even faster. And as sea levels rose by an estimated 14cms in the last century, and could rise by up to 130cms in this century, the coastal cities of the world could face huge bills for storm ...
One of the most important challenges, when designing monitoring facilities in remote locations, is resilience. Remote tide gauge systems operate in extremely harsh environments and require robust communications systems that almost never fail and are capable of storing large amounts of data locally as extra protection for data. Scientists from the National Oceanography Centre (NOC) are ...
A recent study of credit risk linked to climate change points to the need for creative water management strategies, starting now Moody’s-affiliated publisher Four Twenty Seven recently raised several red flags about credit risk and global climate change in a report titled, “Measuring What Matters: A New Approach to Assessing Sovereign Climate Risk.” It predicts that by 2040, ...
Over the past century, sea level has risen nearly eight inches along the California coast, and general circulation model scenarios suggest very substantial increases in sea level as a significant impact of climate change over the coming century. This study includes a detailed analysis of the current population, infrastructure, and property at risk from projected sealevel rise if no actions are ...
Recent storms, including Hurricane Sally and Tropical Storm Beta, have brought a lot of flooding to the Gulf Coast. According to experts, the flooding was not only a result from the at times torrential rains, but also from storm surges. In Louisiana, areas outside the levee protection system were hit especially hard. Sally brought serious flooding to Pensacola where the surge heights reached 5.6 ...
This study aims to assess the vulnerability of populations to storm surge flooding in 12 coastal localities of Virginia, U.S.A. Population vulnerability is assessed by way of three physical factors (elevation, slope, and storm surge category), three built‐up components (road availability, access to hospitals, and access to shelters), and three household conditions (storm preparedness, ...
What are some reasons for flooding? There are many reasons for flooding and not all flooding causes damage or is catastrophic. Flooding mostly occurs when stream or river systems fill beyond their capacity. It can also happen on lake or coastal shorelines during periods of high water levels encroach on flood plains or low-lying areas. The intensity and duration of precipitation saturates the ...
Flood attributes such as the water level may depend on multiple forcing variables that arise from common meteorological conditions. To correctly estimate flood risk in these situations, it is necessary to account for the joint probability distribution of all the relevant forcing variables. An example of a joint probability approach is the design variable method, which focuses on the extremes of ...
The Environment Agency is the principal flood risk management operating authority. It has the power (but not the legal obligation) to manage flood risk from designated main rivers and the sea. These functions in relation to other rivers (defined as ordinary watercourses) in England and Wales are undertaken by Local Authorities or Internal Drainage Boards. The Environment Agency is also ...
In Semarang urban coastal areas experience daily flooding from the sea during high tide (tidal flooding). Flourishing residential areas have changed into unhealthy slums with the nuisance of daily flooding in parts of the city. To overcome these problems a polder system was implemented to address the tidal flooding. The Semarang polder system is the first fully operational polder system in a ...
Climate change, interacting with changes in land use and demographics, will affect important human dimensions in the United States, especially those related to human health, settlements and welfare. The challenges presented by population growth, an aging population, migration patterns, and urban and coastal development will be compounded by changes in temperature, precipitation, and extreme ...
As extreme weather events like wildfires, heat waves, downpours, and droughts continue to make headlines in the United States and around the world, many have wondered what their connection is to climate change. A new report sheds some light, firmly drawing correlations between several extreme weather events in 2012 and human-induced warming. In a report published yesterday in the Bulletin of the ...
Wastewater treatment plants (WWTPs) have a significant role in urban systems’ serviceability. These infrastructures, especially in coastal regions, are vulnerable to flooding. To minimize vulnerability, a better understanding of flood risk must be realized. To quantify the extent of efforts for flood risk management, a unified index is needed for evaluating resiliency as a key concept in ...