Study of the Effect of an Environmentally Friendly Flood Risk Reduction Approach on the Oman Coastlines during the Gonu Tropical Cyclone (Case Study: The Coastline of Sur)

Tropical cyclones may be destructive in the coastal region, such as the Gonu tropical cyclone, which affected the Arabian Peninsula and parts of southern Iran in 2007. In this study, a coupled MIKE 21/3 HD/SW (hydrodynamic/spectral wave) model was used to simulate the inland flooding inside the Sur port during the Gonu tropical cyclone. The MIKE 21 Cyclone Wind Generation (CWG) tool was utilized to generate the cyclone’s wind and pressure field. The required input data were obtained from the International Best Track Archive for Climate Stewardship (IBTrACS) and imported into the CWG tool. In this study, the wind and pressure fields were compared between the analytical vortex model and European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts (ECMWF) data during the Gonu cyclone passage. Moreover, by developing a new model, artificial Mangroves’ effect on inland flooding was investigated. The results show that, contrary to the ECMWF data, the analytical vortex models well captured the storm event’s wind and pressure field. Furthermore, the flood hazard is calculated based on the inundation depth, flow velocity, and area’s vulnerability. The flood hazard map shows that 5% of the coast is at high-risk, 49% is at medium-risk, and 46% is at low-risk class in the Sur port. By applying Mangroves as flood risk reduction, the high-risk area is almost completely removed. However, medium and low-risk zones increase by 50% and 50%, respectively. This information could be helpful in disaster risk reduction and coastal management in the future.

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A Novel Method for Evaluation of Flood Risk Reduction Strategies: Explanation of ICPR FloRiAn GIS-Tool and Its First Application to the Rhine River Basin

Geosciences ◽

10.3390/geosciences8100371 ◽

2018 ◽

Vol 8 (10) ◽

pp. 371 ◽

Cited By ~ 1

Author(s):

Adrian Schmid-Breton ◽

Gesa Kutschera ◽

Ton Botterhuis ◽

The ICPR Expert Group ‘Flood Risk Analysis’ (EG HIRI)

Keyword(s):

Risk Assessment ◽

Risk Reduction ◽

River Basin ◽

Flood Risk ◽

Flood Hazard ◽

Action Plan ◽

Rhine River ◽

Culture Heritage ◽

Flood Risk Reduction ◽

The Impact

To determine the effects of measures on flood risk, the International Commission for the Protection of the Rhine (ICPR), supported by the engineering consultant HKV has developed a method and a GIS-tool named “ICPR FloRiAn (Flood Risk Analysis)”, which enables the broad-scale assessment of the effectiveness of flood risk management measures on the Rhine, but could be also applied to other rivers. The tool uses flood hazard maps and associated recurrence periods for an overall damage and risk assessment for four receptors: human health, environment, culture heritage, and economic activity. For each receptor, a method is designed to calculate the impact of flooding and the effect of measures. The tool consists of three interacting modules: damage assessment, risk assessment, and measures. Calculations using this tool show that the flood risk reduction target defined in the Action Plan on Floods of the ICPR in 1998 could be achieved with the measures already taken and those planned until 2030. Upon request, the ICPR will provide this tool and the method to other river basin organizations, national authorities, or scientific institutions. This article presents the method and GIS-tool developed by the ICPR as well as first calculation results.

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Scaling protection and restoration of natural infrastructure to reduce flood impacts and enhance resilience

Shore & Beach ◽

10.34237/1008746 ◽

2019 ◽

pp. 51-61

Author(s):

Shannon Cunniff

Keyword(s):

Risk Reduction ◽

Flood Risk ◽

Disaster Response ◽

Flood Hazard ◽

Scale Up ◽

Flood Damage ◽

Wildlife Habitat ◽

Ecological Resilience ◽

Flood Impacts ◽

Flood Risk Reduction

Restoring natural infrastructure offers much promise as a means to reduce both flood hazard and exposure to complement and supplement other flood damage reduction strategies. Interest increased in flood risk reduction methods using natural and naturebased features, in part, because of increased recognition that such could provide both flood risk reduction and other benefits, such as water quality uplift, community recreational space, and fish and wildlife habitat. Recent flood disasters and the rising costs of disaster response and recovery have triggered policy shifts toward economically efficient investments that enhance greater community resilience. While natural infrastructure is becoming more widely recognized as a tactic for building community and ecological resilience to erosion and flooding, it remains underutilized. Actions to aid consideration of natural infrastructure and scale up its use are presented.

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Is Jakarta’s New Flood Risk Reduction Strategy Transformational?

Sustainability ◽

10.3390/su10082934 ◽

2018 ◽

Vol 10 (8) ◽

pp. 2934 ◽

Cited By ~ 10

Author(s):

Matthias Garschagen ◽

Gusti Surtiari ◽

Mostapha Harb

Keyword(s):

Risk Reduction ◽

Flood Risk ◽

Large Scale ◽

Flood Hazard ◽

National Level ◽

Development Planning ◽

Ecological Impacts ◽

Adaptation Measures ◽

The Future ◽

Flood Risk Reduction

On a conceptual and normative level, the debate around transformation in the context of disaster risk reduction and climate change adaptation has been rising sharply over the recent years. Yet, whether and how transformation occurs in the messy realities of policy and action, and what separates it from other forms of risk reduction, is far from clear. Jakarta appears to be the perfect example to study these questions. It is amongst the cities with the highest flood risk in the world. Its flood hazard is driven by land subsidence, soil sealing, changes in river discharge, and—increasingly—sea level rise. As all of these trends are set to continue, Jakarta’s flood hazard is expected to intensify in the future. Designing and implementing large-scale risk reduction and adaption measures therefore has been a priority of risk practitioners and policy-makers at city and national level. Against this background, the paper draws on a document analysis and original empirical household survey data to review and evaluate current adaptation measures and to analyze in how far they describe a path that is transformational from previous risk reduction approaches. The results show that the focus is clearly on engineering solutions, foremost in the Giant Sea Wall project. The project is likely to transform the city’s flood hydrology. However, it cements rather than transforms the current risk management paradigm which gravitates around the goal of controlling flood symptoms, rather than addressing their largely anthropogenic root causes. The results also show that the planned measures are heavily contested due to concerns about ecological impacts, social costs, distributional justice, public participation, and long-term effectiveness. On the outlook, the results therefore suggest that the more the flood hazard intensifies in the future, the deeper a societal debate will be needed about the desired pathway in flood risk reduction and overall development planning—particularly with regards to the accepted levels of transformation, such as partial retreat from the most flood-affected areas.

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Changes in river flood hazard in Europe: a review

Hydrology Research ◽

10.2166/nh.2017.016 ◽

2017 ◽

Vol 49 (2) ◽

pp. 294-302 ◽

Cited By ~ 27

Author(s):

Zbigniew W. Kundzewicz ◽

Iwona Pińskwar ◽

G. Robert Brakenridge

Keyword(s):

Climate Change ◽

Risk Reduction ◽

Flood Risk ◽

Human Impacts ◽

Flood Hazard ◽

Spatial And Temporal Variability ◽

Considerable Uncertainty ◽

River Flood ◽

Flood Risk Reduction ◽

Projected Changes

Abstract Despite costly flood risk reduction efforts, material damage and death toll caused by river floods continue to be high in Europe. In the present review paper, after outlining a process-based perspective, we examine observed and projected changes in flood hazard. Spatial and temporal variability of large floods is analyzed, based on a time series of flood information, collected by the Dartmouth Flood Observatory in 1985–2016. Model-based projections of future flood hazard are critically reviewed. It is difficult to disentangle the climatic change component from strong natural variability and direct human impacts. The climate change impact on flood hazard is complex and depends on the river flood generation mechanism. It has not been possible to detect ubiquitous changes in flood characteristics in observation records in Europe, so far. However, we found an increasing tendency in the number of floods with large magnitude and severity, even if year-to-year variability is strong. There is a considerable spread of river flood hazard projections in Europe among studies, carried out under different assumptions. Therefore, caution must be exerted by practitioners in charge of climate change adaptation, flood risk reduction, risk insurance, and water resources management when accommodating information on flood hazard projections, under considerable uncertainty.

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Transformative Flood Risk Reduction in Jakarta: Between Urgent Needs and Contested Measures

10.20944/preprints201805.0422.v1 ◽

2018 ◽

Author(s):

Matthias Garschagen ◽

Ayu Surtiari ◽

Mostapha Harb

Keyword(s):

Risk Reduction ◽

Flood Risk ◽

Flood Hazard ◽

Household Survey ◽

Development Planning ◽

Ecological Impacts ◽

Adaptation Measures ◽

Soil Sealing ◽

The Future ◽

Flood Risk Reduction

Jakarta belongs to the cities with the highest flood risk in the world. Its flood hazard is driven by land subsidence, soil sealing, changes in river discharge and increasingly sea level rise. As all of these trends are set to continue, Jakarta’s flood hazard is expected to intensify in the future. Designing and implementing risk reduction and adaption measures is therefore of utmost importance. Against the background, the paper draws on a discourse analysis and original empirical household survey data to review and evaluate current adaptation measures and to analyze in how far they describe a path that is transformative from previous risk reduction approaches. The results show that the focus is clearly on engineering solutions, foremost in the Giant Sea Wall project. The project is likely to transform the city’s flood hydrology. However, it cements rather than transforms the current risk management paradigm which gravitates around the goal of controlling flood symptoms, rather than addressing their anthropogenic root causes. The results also show that the planned measures are heavily contested due to concerns about ecological impacts, social costs, distributional justice, public participation and long-term effectiveness. On the outlook, the results therefore suggest that the more the flood hazard will intensify in the future, the deeper a societal debate will be needed about the desired pathway in flood risk reduction and overall development planning – particularly with regards to the accepted level of transformation, such as partial retreat from the most flood-affected areas.

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