EU floods underline relevance of four priorities for action Sendai Framework
The Netherlands -- In late May and early June 2016, extreme flooding began after several days of heavy rain in central Europe, Germany and France, but also Austria, Belgium, Romania, and Moldova. Not only Europe is affected but also other regions, like Northern Africa. UNESCO-IHE's flood experts Chris Zevenbergen and Biswa Bhattacharya visited the city of Alexandria in Egypt last December where they advised local authorities how to better prepare for extreme rainfall events, which will happen more often in the future.
Floods in Europe
Flooding began after several days of heavy rain in Europe. Flood waters flowing through Paris have swelled the river Seine to 6 metres above its normal level, with a peak level of up to 6.5 metres. In preparation of extreme high water levels of the Seine, the Louvre and Orsay museums in Paris have evacuated many works of art from basement storerooms to higher levels.
This dramatic preparedness measure highlights the vulnerability of Europe's cultural heritage to flooding. The river’s record high was 8.6 metres during the devastating floods of 1910. A week of storms submerged streets, closed schools and left many people stranded on rooftops in northern Europe.
Berry Gersonius, Senior Lecturer in Urban Flood Resilience: 'UNESCO-IHE can take up the research-for-development challenge related to the protection of cultural heritage and minimize floods in Europe. With a number of research activities ongoing, such as the EU PEARL project, this is the right time to increase and expand our network in this emerging field of research.
Chris Zevenbergen Professor of Flood Resilience: “The recent floods in Europe underline again the relevance of the four priorities for action in the Sendai Framework, focused on improved understanding of risk, strengthening disaster risk governance, investing in disaster risk reduction for resilience, and enhancing preparedness for effective response.”
OECD has prepared a study on Paris' resilience to floods: potential risk is that the balancing reservoirs are full.
Floods in Alexandria, Egypt
On October 27 and 28 of 2015 Alexandria City and some other neighboring coastal cities of Egypt have experienced an unexpected severe rainfall event (at some places 180 mm in 2 hrs was recorded) causing severe flooding of these areas. This devastating flood has been described as the worst flooding of Alexandria City over the past decades in terms of the number of people affected and the amount of economic damage.
The unexpected rainfall intensities and duration with extremes heavy rainfall have not been anticipated. The existing urban hydraulic network of canals and drainage infrastructure of Alexandria have not been designed to accommodate the large volumes of water resulting from this prolonged and heavy rainfall of October 2015. As a result of these huge and unexpected water volumes some pump stations were disrupted as a result of these extreme loadings.
This uncontrolled process of urbanization has resulted in a further densification and infill of the existing urban areas at the expense of open, green and unpaved areas in the city. This loss of permeable, green areas Alexandria has further reduced the capacity of the city to retain stormwater resulting in more peak run-off during heavy rainfall.
Professor Chris Zevenbergen: 'Although this October storm was a rare event, it could have been predicted at least one week in advance. Hence, if an appropriate warning system would have been in place, measures could have been taken to alleviate its consequences.The use of rainfall forecast in stormwater modelling can be one of first useful and cheap mitigation measures. On the longer term upgrading of the capacity of the drainage and irrigation system will be needed together with improving the capacity of the city to retain and store rain water, and to transforming the city into a water sensitive city; This is needed to both reduce flooding itself, and limit its impact when it does happen'.
“Weather-related disasters pose a serious threat to Arab cities. The rising urban population coupled with poor quality of infrastructure and services are the key drivers. Poor land-use planning against hazards, absence of building construction standards or their application, urban poverty, rural-urban migration, immigrant population in Arab cities and the impact of climate change are some contributing factors to urban vulnerability. Additionally, the city governments in these regions have limited authority in city planning and implement local level actions due to the centralized nature of state. The awareness of communities and authorities is extremely low about disaster and climate risks disaster preparedness,” according to Professor Zevenbergen.
Watch the video interview with our flood experts here
Flood Risk Management Master programme
Flooding is a problem worldwide, and the challenge will become even larger in the future. There is a lack of professionals with the interdisciplinary skillset needed to tackle the associated environmental, social and economic aspects. UNESCO-IHE jointly offers an Erasmus Mundus Masters Programme on Flood Risk Management. This course introduces the participants to the state-of-the-art concepts and practices of flood risk management. It covers the European experience in managing floods and stresses in the use of the latest tools in flood risk management.
Existing masters programmes on floods offered in the European Union cover many technical aspects but lack integration. This programme follows a holistic approach and is explicitly designed to cover a wide range of topics - from drivers and natural processes to models, decisions and socio-economic consequences and institutional environment and is therefore an important advance in water education for Europe.
Job opportunities
Lydia Cumiskey, from Ireland, followed this programme and graduated in 2013. Cumiskey states that the FRM diploma opens many job prospects. 'Once you'll leave after following this Erasmus Mundus Programme, you'll have a high level of education and a high standard that is well-respected all across the world. Therefore, job opportunities are very good, as well as research opportunities.' According to her, graduating at this programme can definitely help you obtaining an interesting PhD position.
Are you interested in following the Erasmus Mundus Programme on Flood Risk Management? Visit the Flood Risk Master website for more information and online application.
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