As a non-structural measure, flood forecasting (such as discharge, water level, or flow volume) is a crucial part of flow regulation and water resources management. Worldwide, flood disasters account for about one-third of all natural disasters in terms of number and economic losses (Berz 2000). As stated by Dutta and Herath (2004), out of the total number of flood events in the world during the past 30 years, 40% occurred in Asia and Southeast Asia countries stand for the second worst region in Asia. ASEAN Disaster Risk Management Initiative (2010) reported that a catastrophic 200-year flood (0.5 percent annual probability of exceedance) would have a major impact on the economies of the Southeast Asian countries, including Myanmar, which are already fragile. The process of floods is basically complex, uncertain and unpredictable, due to its nonlinear dependency on meteorological and topographic parameters (Thirumalaiah and Deo 1998). While distributed hydrological modeling involves multidisciplinary and complex issues, simple, robust and sustainable approaches in flood forecasting system are needed, without much effort in continuous updating such models. For flood forecasting to be effective, it must provide flood warnings with a reasonable lead time. Furthermore, for real time operation, the authorities may require to access the gauges of significant predictors (Corani and Guariso 2005), thus saving considerable costs, a critical issue in developing countries.
Since a flood warning and forecast system does not primarily aim at providing explicit knowledge of rainfall–runoff processes, black-box models have been widely used in addition to the physical based models (Abudu et al. 2010; Magar and Jothiprakash 2011). The main focus o...
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...dy has not only presented the robustness of ANN models in multi-step flood forecasting with limited data types, but also assessed their clear-cut superiority to regression models, for the conditions under which the regression technique has the best performance. To establish the true merits of ANNs relative to conventional statistical techniques, comparisons are made between the forecasting performance of ANN and stepwise multiple linear regression (SMLR) models. Two conditions are addressed in the comparison of forecasting skills: (a) using a-site data only and (b) using at-site and upstream data. This paper is an effort to improve national flood forecasting systems in Myanmar by applying ANN models which offer more advantages than the conventional regression models. Additionally, the results of this study can be applied to similar basins and further researches.
Floods can be a very dangerous natural disaster because a flood has the power to move cars, buildings, and cause massive damage to life and property. Even the small floods that are only 30 centimetres or so can do massive damage to houses and if the
New Orleans, Louisiana lies at the second lowest elevation among major cities in the United States. It is a city surrounded by water, making it almost like an island. To counter this dangerous combination of the low elevation along with the lakes, rivers and swamps surrounding it, the Army Corps of Engineers built a series of levees around the city to foster its protection. It is these very same levees however that might doom the city should a Category 3 hurricane ever hit. Our statistical analyses examined the current belief that there is a 39% probability that New Orleans will be hit by a major hurricane and based on the resulting Z-score, rejected that belief. We did find however that the probability, while not 39%, was still in the 30th percentile range, which should still be a major cause for concern among the leaders and residences of the city of New Orleans.
A major flood on any river is both a long-term and a short-term event, particularly any river basin where human influence has exerted "control" over the ri...
The Cumberland and Cumberland River basin experienced a 36 hour rainfall that produced flooding in Nashville and its greater area (After Action Report, II). The 2010 two day storm was believed to be greater than a 100 year event. Storm activity began on May 1st and 2nd which created a large scale flash flood along the Cumberland and Lower Tennessee rivers, and within its tributaries. Historically the Cumberland River basin has received great amounts of precipitation and has experienced extreme rainfall before, making it prone to severe flooding (After Action Report, I). Some of the historic floods that have affected the Cumberland River are the December 1926, January 1927, January 1937 and March 1975 floods, which produced a maximum flood height in much of the river. Before the May 2010 flood, the Cumberland River reached a flood stage of 45.26 feet during the May 1987 flood which was a result of a series of flooding events that took place during an extensive amount of time (After Action Report, 4). The 2010 flood which affected much of Nashville acted more like a flash flood, which produced record breaking rainfall for much of the area. According to the Quantitative Precipitation Forecast (QPF) on April 30th rainfall totaled 7.8 inches across central Tennessee. The report also states that there was a widespread of rainfall equaling to 2 to 6 inch in total, over southeastern US stretching to Illinois, Indiana and Ohio. Rainfall for parts of western Tennessee and Kentucky totaled 3 to 4 inches with a high of 4.65 inches (After Action Report, III). As it is stated by the report areas around Nashville received more than 13 inches of rain in a span of 36 hours, which doubled the record set by the September 1979 flood event. At th...
New Orleans flooding risks originated from its location characteristics in proximity of Mississippi River. Since its foundation up to 1927, New Orleans water and flooding threats originated from Mississippi River but human activities had contained this by 1930s. Regrettably, this led to additional water problems. Accordingly, the critical changes to the New Orleans environment originating from the human development worsened the water problems in area caused by the floods. In particular, the growth in ...
The accuracy and precision of disaster forecast reached its limit nowadays. The country knows where the disaster starts, when it hits them and how big it is. The focus is now on the improvement of people’s shelter in order to minimize victims of the natur...
Over the years, many damages related to flood have been reported. In France, floods have killed more than 100 people in the last 10 years. In less than three years, two catastrophic flash floods struck southern France. The first flash flood occurred in November 1999 and the second flash flood occurred in September 2002. The two flash floods cause 58 fatalities and properties damage of around 2.3 billion of Euros (Vinet, 2008). In United States of America, flash flood that occurred in June 2001 has cause $2 billion of damages to the urban states in Texas (Holder et al., 2002). All of this damages and loss serve as frightening examples of the threat that flood possess.
Flooding is one of the leading public policy concerns in many cities. Major floods in Ho Chi Minh City, Bangkok, New Orleans, Talcoban, and Rome have resulted in loss of lives, damage to infrastructure, economic losses, and threaten health with water borne diseases. With the onset of climate change, sea level is expected rise and the frequency of intense storms are likely to increase, makeing cities more vulnerable to the resulting hazards (IPCC, 2007). The vulnerability of cities is chronic as 50% of the world population is expected to live in them by 2030 (Brown et al., 2012; Huong and Pathirana, 2012). Accordingly, there are two known approaches that address flooding: (1) mitigation is a global level response that reduces the long-term hazards of flooding by targeting the causes through policies that reduce green-house gas emissions; and (2) adaptation is a place-based policy response that reduces the felt and forecasted impact of flooding because the effects, response, and benefits area specific (IPCC, 2002; Webster and McElwee, 2009). Both of these interventions are complementary and should be undertaken jointly to reap their full intended benefits (Rose and Krausmann, 2013). At the city level, adaptation fits nicely into the paradigms of planning and can be undertaken by local planners and other decision makers to reduce flooding vulnerability (Blanco et al., 2008).
A brief technical review has been undertaken on the existing ERA drainage design manual. This technical review has identified data and technology gaps within the existing manual and made recommendation for further studies and data collection. Following review of runoff and flow estimation techniques currently adopted in Ethiopia, it is recommended that current rainfall runoff and flow estimation analysis techniques are improved using newly available data and technique.
The Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam (GERD) is a gravity dam on the Blue Nile River in Ethiopia currently under construction. The dam will be the largest hydroelectric power plant in Africa when completed. The reservoir at 63 billion cubic meters will be one of the continent’s largest. The potential impacts of the dam have been the source of severe regional controversy. The dam could be at risk from damage by earthquakes, yet no one knows if it has even been analyzed for this risk, or the largest earthquake it is being designed to withstand. The failure of such a huge structure puts more than millions of people living downstream at risk. In dam safety programs and flood prediction, Hydrodynamic modelling of dam break modelling crucial tool to evaluate dam induced risk and to support emergency plan, optimizing response efforts and directing first response teams to damaged areas. However, a better understanding of flood predictability and model efficiency is needed before such systems can be effectively implemented.
Bangladesh is one of flood prone countries and it is frequently hit by devastating cyclones, shocking flood and crippling droughts. Bangladesh has intricate river system with three major rivers- the Ganges, the Brahmaputra and the Meghana and it gives the country as a water resource. On the other hand, country is prone to flood disaster almost every year with wide variation in magnitude and intensity. Flood has been top severe disaster in Bangladesh with disastrous impacts to environment and socio-economic mostly.
The main hazards for Jakarta relate to water management and flood control. Extreme weather events cause overloading of the existing drainage system, while sea level rise coupled with land subsidence is making Jakarta increasingly vulnerable to tidal floods due to its coastal location. Jakarta has also experienced earthquakes and should be prepared for other unprecedented geological events and tsunamis. According to BNPB - Indonesian National Board for Disaster Management, flooding is the most frequent hazard, which occurred 98 times from 2011 to 2015 (Fig.2). Taking flooding as an example, in the flood map we can see flooding mainly affects the north coast of Jakarta (Fig.3), where most of the city’s industries are located. Flooding occurs regularly throughout the year, stalling traffic, damaging houses and gravely attenuating the flow of business at all levels of society. Even with just a moderate amount of rain, the traffic in the city is critically impaired, often for hours. Due to high rainfall intensity, land subsidence, road inundation and poor drainage systems, flooding greatly impacts commercial activities, cause loss of property, spread of illness and loss of
Floods are the most common natural disaster as well as the leading cause of natural disaster fatalities worldwide. (Doocy S., Daniels A., Murray S., & Kirsch TD., 2013). Schanze et al., 2006, also indicate that flooding is one of the most threatening natural hazards in the world. Musa and Usman, (2013) assert that, flooding has the largest damage potential and affects a larger number of people when compared to other natural disasters. According to Munich, 2015, due to flood disaster, there have been a proportionate increase in economic losses, loss of human lives and livelihoods, environmental damages and destruction to social infrastructure during the last forty years. The annual average of floods, 127 in the previous
Flood has become fidgety for people along the coastline yet the sea level has become higher than the land they live in. in this situation, the government has to take action for controlling the subsidence. In order to create some infrastructure to prevent subsidence or subsidence effect, there has to be a study that explains the subsidence mechanism in Jakarta. It is recommended for local government agencies to conduct better disaster management and relief fund management. Early warning system should be installed and executed by responsible local authorities
On April of 2017, it experienced annual flooding caused by major local rivers overflowing. In Belarus, the usual flooding period lasts 30-120 days and depending on how large the overflowing body of water is determines how high the water levels rise. “In large rivers, the water rises 8.6 – 12.8 m above the normal (mean water) level. In middle-sized and small rivers, the water rises approximately half as high. Over the last fifty to seventy years Belarus was damaged by floods over eleven times, the heaviest in 1956, 1958, 1974, 1979, 1993 and 1999.” (Climate Change Post, December