Project objectives:
The FLOOD RELIEF project aims to
develop and demonstrate a new generation of flood forecasting methodologies which will advance present capabilities and accuracies and
to make the results more readily accessible both to flood managers and those threatened by floods.
This is achieved by exploiting and integrating different sources of forecast information, including improved hydrological and meteorological model
systems and databases, radar, advanced data assimilation procedures and uncertainty estimation, into real-time flood management decision support tool
designed to meet the needs of regional flood forecasting authorities
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Project
Summary:
Real-time flood forecasting systems, which link weather forecasts, the
state of the river catchment, river discharges and water levels, can be used
to respond to floods as they occur and to reduce their costs in terms of
lives, property and infrastructure breakdown. In comparison to the
construction of major flood protection works such as dams, dikes and
polders, flood forecasting is cost effective and the environmental impacts
are minimal. More importantly, when used for flood warning, these
systems can save lives. By using new technologies to improve flood
forecasting, we can thus forecast floods ahead of time rather than clearing
up afterwards.
Current flood forecasting and warning systems have several limitations,
such as insufficient lead-time to provide accurate flood warnings,
inadequate spatial and temporal resolution of the real-time rainfall
observations and forecasts for flood producing storm, little integration of
different sources of forecast information. Moreover, their ability in
considering the uncertainties in estimating and forecasting precipitation
and flood discharges is very limited; their application at regional level is
also limited and the costs of improving forecasting may be prohibitive.
The FLOODRELIEF project addressed these limitations. A new powerful
and highly accessible Internet-based real-time decision support system
designed to meet the needs of regional flood forecasting authorities and
make the results more readily accessible has been developed. The
system exploits and integrates different sources of forecast information,
including improved hydrological and meteorological model systems and
databases, radar, advanced data assimilation procedures and uncertainty
estimation.
The technologies developed in the project have been evaluated and tested
in two highly flood prone regional basins, one in Poland and one in the
United Kingdom. Flooding in Poland captured Europe’s attention in July
1997 when a devastating flooding was triggered by an extreme cyclonal
weather condition of heavy rainfall in the Beskidy and the Sudety. In the
Czech Republic as well as in Poland, the catastrophe led to the loss of
over 100 lives, the evacuation of almost 190,000 people and the incurrence
of 3 billion EUR in damages. The importance of flood forecasting and flood
management in Poland was highlighted by the localised flooding of 1998
but also by the severe storms which, over several weeks in July 2001,
resulted in thousands being forced from their homes and in around 25
reported fatalities.
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Achieved Objectives:
Contracted deliverables:
1.1
Inception Report
January 2003
1.2
Workshop Report no. 2
August 2003
1.3
Workshop Report no. 3
December 2003
1.4
Workshop Report no. 4
May 2004
1.5
Workshop Report no. 5
December 2004
1.6
Workshop Report no. 6
July 2005
1.7
Final report
June 2006
2.1
High-resolution weather forecasting using dynamical downscaling - system description
January 2004
2.2
High-resolution weather forecasting using dynamical downscaling - system validation.
May 2004
2.3
Integration of Weather Forecasting system in FLOODRELIEF DSS,
January 2005
3.1
An atmospheric mesoscale model with improved descriptions of hydrological processes for coupled atmospheric and hydrological simulations
May 2004
3.2
Procedures for quantifying the uncertainty of precipitation fields and a sensitivity analysis with focus on the impact of precipitation uncertainties
on flood forecasts
December 2005
3.3
An integrated atmospheric/hydrodynamical modelling system
December 2005
4.1
Integrated QPF with combined data from weather radar and numerical weather model
February 2004
4.2
Implementation of algorithms for data assimilation and validation in real-time – Radar data correction and assimilation into the MM5 NWP model
July 2004
4.3*
Accuracy and Uncertainty Evaluation – UK case study
Accuracy and Uncertainty Evaluation – UK case study
April 2005
5.1
Establishment of meteorological and hydrological databases
January 2003
5.2
Prototype of a novel grid-based hydrological modelling approach
October 2003
5.3
Model interfaces to the meteorological model and radar data
June 2004
5.4
Calibrated hydrological and hydraulic models for the study catchments
July 2004
6.1
Uncertainty Framework
April 2005
6.2
Prototype Implementation of Uncertainty Framework,
May 2005
7.1
Draft User Requirement document
Jan 2003 Part 1 April 2003 Part 2
7.2.
Design and specification of the real-time decision support system.
October 2003
7.3
Prototype displays of meteorological and uncertainty information
January 2005
7.4
Prototype Decision Support System -CD
July 2005
8.1
Accuracy and Uncertainty Evaluation – Poland case study
April 2006
8.2
Operational guidelines and best practice, Poland
April 2006
9.1
Accuracy and Uncertainty Evaluation – UK case study
April 2006
9.2
Operational guidelines and best practice, United Kingdom (UK)
April 2006
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Professor Paul Bardos