Suchergebnisse

Part 8: Information Systems and Applications ; International audience ; Within implementation of Directive of the European Parliament and of the Council 2007/06/ES of 23 October 2007 on the assessment and management of flood risks the classification was recommended to Czech Republic which sorties the areas affected by floods according to the degree of threat and economic potential of these areas. For this purpose was developed the model of territory unit evaluation. This model is formulated as a combination of two models including model of risk matrix and model of the area value expressed by available statistical data. These data reflect the different levels of areas development and their possible future development through weighted multi-criteria decision making. The aim of our paper is to present the model and its use in terms of increasing the efficiency of spending resources in area in relation to flood protection. The model may serve as an inspiration in terms of use for such a large territorial units in European countries applying the Directive.

Abstract. The paper presents a review of structural measures that were taken to cope with floods in some cities along the Danube River, such as Vienna, Bratislava, and Belgrade. These cities were also considered as case studies within the KULTURisk project. The structural measures are reviewed and compared to each other according to the type, duration of application, the return period of the design flood event, how the project measures are integrated into spatial planning and the problems that occur in the flood defences today. Based on this review, some suggestions are given on how to improve the flood risk management in flood-prone areas.

Abstract. Flood-protection levees have been built along rivers and coastlines globally. Current datasets, however, are generally confined to territorial boundaries (national datasets) and are not always easily accessible, posing limitations for hydrologic models and assessments of flood hazard. Here, we bridge this knowledge gap by collecting and standardizing global flood-protection levee data for river deltas into the open-source global river delta levee data environment, openDELvE. In openDELvE, we aggregate levee data from national databases, reports, maps, and satellite imagery. The database identifies the river delta land areas that the levees have been designed to protect. Where data are available, we record the extent and design specifications of the levees themselves (e.g., levee height, crest width, construction material) in a harmonized format. The 1657 polygons of openDELvE contain 19 248 km of levees and 44 733.505 km2 of leveed area. For the 153 deltas included in openDELvE, 17 % of the land area is confined by flood-protection levees. Around 26 % of delta population lives within the 17 % of delta area that is protected, making leveed areas densely populated. openDELvE data can help improve flood exposure assessments, many of which currently do not account for flood-protection levees. We find that current flood hazard assessments that do not include levees may exaggerate the delta flood exposure by 33 % on average, but up to 100 % for some deltas. The openDELvE is made public on an interactive platform (https://www.opendelve.eu/, 1 October 2022), which includes a community-driven revision tool to encourage inclusion of new levee data and continuous improvement and refinement of open-source levee data.

This paper investigates the land value creation potential from flood mitigation investments in a theoretical and applied setting, using the urban area of Buenos Aires as a case study. It contributes to the literature on the wider economic benefits of government interventions and the dividends of resilience investments. Using a simple urban economics framework that represents land and housing markets, it finds that not all flood mitigation interventions display the same potential for land value creation: where land is more valuable (city centers for example), the benefits of resilience are higher. The paper also provides ranges for land value creation potential from the flood mitigation works in Buenos Aires under various model specifications. Although the estimates vary largely depending on model parameters and specifications, in many cases the land value creation would be sufficient to justify the investments. This result is robust even in the closed city configuration with conservative flood damage estimates, providing that the parameters remain reasonably close to the values obtained from the calibration. Finally, acknowledging that fully calibrating and running an urban simulation model is data greedy and time intensive—even a simple model as proposed here—this research also proposes reduced form expressions that can provide approximations for land value creation from flood mitigation investments and can be used in operational contexts.

The OECD and the Directorate-General for Environment, the European Commission department responsible for EU policy on the environment, joined forces to examine current and future water-related financing challenges faced by EU member states. These include investments needed to comply with EU regulation for water supply, wastewater collection and treatment, and flood protection. As part of the research, new data was produced on current levels of expenditure for water supply, sanitation and flood protection, as well as on projected needs. It supported a comparison across member states and substantiated tailored policy discussions in selected countries and at European level. This report captures the rationale for the research, the main quantitative outcomes and the policy issues and recommendations that derived from this two-year co-operation. Lessons from Europe outlined in this report can inspire similar research and policy discussions in other parts of the world.

The protection of larger built-up areas that constitute sections of actively functioning urban zones is a challenge, even under favourable political and economic conditions. The case of Krakow&rsquo ; s historical town centre, which is protected as a historical site by national law and it was placed on the UNESCO World Heritage Sites List in 1978, clearly demonstrates how difficult it is to reconcile the passive character of current conservation doctrines with the demands of the free market and growth-oriented economy, when developer pressure is not sufficiently balanced out by public opinion and urban activist movements, when planning tools are incomplete or insufficient, and the criteria according to which strategic decisions are made are of a quantitative rather than a qualitative character. Apart from commonly encountered problems that are associated with the gentrification of town centres or the negative impact of mass tourism, Krakow must also face a growing flood hazard that stems from its specific and unfavourable hydrological and hydrogeological conditions that are compounded by the uncontrolled and uncoordinated expansion of urbanised areas, the decay of the natural environment, and the consequences of climate change. This article presents the multi-aspect site-specific conditions of the historical centre of Krakow, as well as the analysis of its protection as a UNESCO World Heritage Site, in the context of flood protection, while taking into consideration the environmental, economic, and social dimension of heritage. The critical conclusions that are featured in the work indicate both areas of possible immediate remedial action and the potential directions that new integrated protection strategies would take.

A letter report issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "In 1996 and 1999, Congress authorized the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers (the Corps) to strengthen sections of the American River and Natomas Basin levees that provide flood protection for Sacramento, California. In 2002, the Corps reported that the cost of this work, known as the Common Features Project, had increased significantly. GAO was asked to determine why costs increased, the extent to which the Corps analyzed and reported the potential cost increases to Congress in a timely manner, and whether the Corps correctly estimated economic benefits."

It is widely acknowledged that in times of climate change loss of coastal resources and risk for human life can be minimized by implementing adaptation strategies. Such strategies need to encompass a balanced mix of non-structural (institutional) and structural (technical) measures based on sound scientific knowledge. This article discusses measures carried out to protect the city of Venice, Italy from flooding (locally known as "high water"), and reflects on their ability to anticipate a possible acceleration of sea-level rise as induced by climate change. It is based on scientific literature, legislative and policy documents of key institutions, reports and documents of organizations working on Venice issues, newspaper articles, and interviews. Our analysis shows that the synergic action of the hydraulic defense infrastructure under construction is in principle adequate to withstand a broad range of sea-level rise scenarios for the next 100 years. However, when the goal is to use these investments effectively major changes in the existing institutional arrangements will be required in the years to come. The Venice findings point out the difficulties and yet the importance of identifying and implementing both non-structural and structural measures to adapt to climate change. © 2012 Copyright Taylor and Francis Group, LLC.

Abstract
Climate change is one of the most significant and pressing issues faced by humanity; it frequently results in major natural disasters, such as catastrophic floods, which require the establishment of effective management policies by local and national authorities. These policies involve complex multistep decision-making processes that require combined assessment of various sources of data by different stakeholders. Even though an abundance of data is being collected to monitor climate change and estimate its consequences on the society, the environment, and the economy, policy-making is still largely based on intuition rather than evidence due to lack of a structured approach for modeling the decision-making process and considering the appropriate use of data in every step of the process. The goal of this work is to introduce a novel decision support system that can guide policy makers through a structured data-driven decision-making process aiming to create policies for flood risk management. The proposed system is a multifacet platform that guides policy makers through five phases—inform, advise, monitor, evaluate, and revise—of the policy cycle. For each phase, different dashboards provide relevant information regarding the environmental, social, and economic conditions. To demonstrate the potential of the proposed system, we use it to assess a flood protection policy in the city of Vicenza, Italy. The results reveal the benefits and challenges of the proposed decision support tool for public administrations involved in flood risk management.