Recent Advances In Flood Risk Management

This book provides a series of topics on flood risk management from around the world. The first section includes models for improved approaches to flood risk management, the importance of groundwater management in the context of floods (focussing on Taiwan), contingency plan for local communities using flood simulation, deciding on response strategies against the identified flood risk before a flood occurs (illustrated for the Philippines) and models for estimating maximum flood heights (illustrated for Mozambique). The second section examines flood risk management relating to the urban environment, with examples from a coastal city in Saudi Arabia and a housing development in Mexico. The third section relates to flood risk management in the context of agriculture, particularly relating to damage to Asian rice crops.

This valuable edition brings together 25 peer reviewed articles on technical, socio-economic, environmental and policy aspects of flood risk management. Some emerging technologies are presented and several future challenges are identified. Thus the book forms an excellent reference for the engineers, scientists, planners, policy-makers, researchers, insurance industry and all the practitioners involved in flood risk management.

This book provides a series of topics on flood risk management from around the world. The first section includes models for improved approaches to flood risk management, the importance of groundwater management in the context of floods (focussing on Taiwan), contingency plan for local communities using flood simulation, deciding on response strategies against the identified flood risk before a flood occurs (illustrated for the Philippines) and models for estimating maximum flood heights (illustrated for Mozambique). The second section examines flood risk management relating to the urban environment, with examples from a coastal city in Saudi Arabia and a housing development in Mexico. The third section relates to flood risk management in the context of agriculture, particularly relating to damage to Asian rice crops.

Floods are of increasing public concern world-wide due to increasing damages and unacceptably high numbers of injuries. Previous approaches of flood protection led to limited success especially during recent extreme events. Therefore, an integrated flood risk management is required which takes into consideration both the hydrometeorogical and the societal processes. Moreover, real effects of risk mitigation measures have to be critically assessed. The book draws a comprehensive picture of all these aspects and their interrelations. It furthermore provides a lot of detail on earth observation, flood hazard modelling, climate change, flood forecasting, modelling vulnerability, mitigation measures and the various dimensions of management strategies. In addition to local and regional results of science, engineering and social science investigations on modelling and management, transboundary co-operation of large river catchments are of interest. Based on this, the book is a valuable source of the state of the art in flood risk management but also covers future demands for research and practice in terms of flood issues.

Flooding is widely recognized as a global threat, due to the extent and magnitude of damage it causes around the world each year. Reducing flood risk and improving flood resilience are two closely related aspects of flood management. This book presents the latest advances in flood risk and resilience management on the following themes: hazard and risk analysis, flood behaviour analysis, assessment frameworks and metrics and intervention strategies. It can help the reader to understand the current challenges in flood management and the development of sustainable flood management interventions to reduce the social, economic and environmental consequences from flooding.

The adverse effects of flood disasters in urban areas have been increasing in severity and extent over the past years. The amount of loss resulting from these events is also increasing exponentially, particularly in highly urbanised urban areas, where the effects of intensive land use and climate change are particularly extreme--all despite that our scientific knowledge, technical competence, and computational capacity to develop highly sophisticated and accurate forecasting and simulation models are higher than ever, as is our capacity to map and analyse flood-related data. In order to tackle this global issue, it is fundamental to keep on promoting and developing fundamental and applied research that allows the better targeting of interventions to improve resilience, reduce vulnerability, and enhance recovery as well as assisting decision-makers in delivering more effective flood risk-reduction policies. This book aims to contribute to this goal by providing a space in which to share and discuss recent studies and state-of- the-art methodologies focused on the assessment and mitigation of flood risk in urban areas. It includes nine high-quality chapters authored by eminent scholars who had the tremendous generosity to join me in this editorial project. The range of topics covered by these nine studies is extraordinarily vast, reflecting the complexity of the current challenges associated with the topic.

Floods cause distress and damage wherever and whenever they happen. Flooding from rivers, estuaries and the sea threatens many millions of people worldwide and economic and insurance losses from flooding have increased significantly since 1990. Based on the work of leading researchers, this book provides an overview of advances in this important subject. It covers all aspects of flood risk including the causes of floods; their impacts on people, property and the environment; and portfolios of risk management measurement. Additional topics include climate change, estimation of extremes, flash floods, flood forecasting and warning, inundation modeling, systems analysis, uncertainty, international programs, and flood defense infrastructure and assets. The book also examines environmental, human, and social impacts; vulnerability and resilience; risk sharing; and civil contingency planning and emergency management.

Approaches to avoid loss of life and limit disruption and damage from flooding have changed significantly in recent years. Worldwide, there has been a move from a strategy of flood defence to one of flood risk management. Flood risk management includes flood prevention using hard defences, where appropriate, but also requires that society learns to live with floods and that stakeholders living in flood prone areas develop coping strategies to increase their resilience to flood impacts when these occur. This change in approach represents a paradigm shift which stems from the realisation that continuing to strengthen and extend conventional flood defences is unsustainable economically, environmentally, and in terms of social equity. Flood risk management recognises that a sustainable approach must rest on integrated measures that reduce not only the probability of flooding, but also the consequences. This is essential as increases in the probability of inundation are inevitable in many areas of the world due to climate change, while socio-economic development will lead to spiralling increases in the consequences of flooding unless land use in floodplains is carefully planned. Flood Risk Science and Management provides an extensive and comprehensive synthesis of current research in flood management; providing a multi-disciplinary reference text covering a wide range of flood management topics. Its targeted readership is the international research community (from research students through to senior staff) and flood management professionals, such as engineers, planners, government officials and those with flood management responsibility in the public sector. By using the concept of case study chapters, international coverage is given to the topic, ensuring a world-wide relevance.