A global open-source database of flood-protection levees on river deltas (openDELvE)

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 present our work to develop a single, open-source global river delta levee data environment (openDELvE) which aims to bridge a data deficiency by collecting and standardising global flood-protection levee data for river deltas. In openDELvE we have aggregated data from national databases as well as data stored in reports, maps, and satellite imagery. The database identifies the river delta land areas that the levees have been designed to protect, and where additional data is available, we record the extent and design specifications of the levees themselves (e.g., levee height, crest width, construction material) in a harmonised format. openDELvE currently contains 5,089 km of levees on deltas, and 44,733.505 km2 of leveed area in 1,601 polygons. For the 152 deltas included in openDELvE, on average 19 % of their habitable land area is confined by verifiable flood-protection levees. Globally, we estimate that between 5 % and 54 % of all delta land is confined by flood-protection levees. The data is aligned to the recent standards of Findability, Accessibility, Interoperability and Reuse of scientific data (FAIR) and is open-source. openDELvE is made public on an interactive platform (www.opendelve.eu), which includes a community-driven revision tool to encourage inclusion of new levee data and continuous improvement and refinement of open-source levee data.

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A global database of flood-protection levees on river deltas (openDELvE)

10.5194/egusphere-egu21-13180 ◽

2021 ◽

Author(s):

Joey O'Dell ◽

Jaap H. Nienhuis ◽

Jana R. Cox ◽

Douglas A. Edmonds ◽

Paolo Scussolini

Keyword(s):

Open Source ◽

Construction Material ◽

Information Management System ◽

Flood Protection ◽

Delta Area ◽

Global Database ◽

River Deltas ◽

Global Dynamic ◽

The Uk ◽

National Databases

Global flood modelling requires standardised global flood-protection levee datasets. Current datasets, however, are generally confined to territorial boundaries (national datasets) and are scarcely made public. Here we report on our effort to collect and standardise flood-protection levee data for river deltas from various sources to create a single, open source and FAIR-aligned global dynamic evolving river levee data environment (openDELvE).openDELvE aggregates data from national databases (including the USACE National Levee Database, and the UK EA Asset Information Management System, amongst others) as well as data collected from reports, maps, and satellite imagery. We report primarily the land areas &#160;that the levees have been designed to protect, and where additional data is available, the location of levees and unified attributes.&#160; openDELvE currently contains 1601 mapped leveed area polygons distributed over 152 deltas, covering 28% of globally defined delta area. Out of the 152 deltas, which cover a total delta area of 239,043 km2, the levees registered in the database protect a land area of 42,342 km2. Additionally, more extensive data has been collected from a selection of freely accessible public national databases (mostly the UK and USA, and some of Australia) spanning 5,089 km of levees with additional unified attributes (e.g. levee height, crest width, construction material), and a semi-automated process is being used to extend and develop this layer.The data is published aligned to FAIR-standards and is open-source, with an interactive viewing platform to supplement the data which is targeted for use in global river delta modelling and research. The viewing platform for the database incorporates a community-driven revision tool to encourage ongoing improvement and refinement of delta levee data, which can be extended to future projects as required.&#160;

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Supplementary material to "A global open-source database of flood-protection levees on river deltas (openDELvE)"

10.5194/nhess-2021-291-supplement ◽

2021 ◽

Author(s):

Joey O'Dell ◽

Jaap H. Nienhuis ◽

Jana R. Cox ◽

Douglas A. Edmonds ◽

Paolo Scussolini

Keyword(s):

Open Source ◽

Flood Protection ◽

River Deltas ◽

Source Database ◽

Supplementary Material

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Recovery and Restoration of Biloxi Marsh in the Mississippi River Delta

Water ◽

10.3390/w13223179 ◽

2021 ◽

Vol 13 (22) ◽

pp. 3179

Author(s):

G. Paul Kemp ◽

Elizabeth C. McDade ◽

John W. Day ◽

Robert R. Lane ◽

Nancye H. Dawers ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Mississippi River ◽

The State ◽

River Delta ◽

Regional Studies ◽

Mississippi River Delta ◽

Industry Data ◽

River Deltas ◽

2D And 3D ◽

Restoration Measures ◽

Different Levels

The State of Louisiana is leading an integrated wetland restoration and flood risk reduction program in the Mississippi River Delta. East of New Orleans, Biloxi Marsh, a ~1700 km2 peninsula jutting 60 km north toward the State of Mississippi is one of few Delta wetland tracts well positioned to dissipate hurricane surge and waves threatening the city’s newly rebuilt hurricane flood defenses. Both its location on the eastern margin of the Delta, and its genesis as the geologic core of the shallow water St. Bernard/Terre aux Boeuf sub-delta, which was the primary Mississippi outlet for almost 2000 years, make Biloxi Marsh attractive for restoration, now that the Mississippi River Gulf Outlet deep-draft ship channel has been dammed, and 50 years of impacts from construction and operation have abated. Now, the cascade of ecosystem damage it caused can be reversed or offset by restoration projects that leverage natural recovery and increased access to suspended sediment from the Mississippi River. Biloxi Marsh is (1) geologically stable, (2) benefiting from increased input of river sediment, and (3) could be restored to sustainability earlier and for a longer period than most of the rest of the submerging Mississippi Delta. The focus of this review is on the Biloxi Marsh, but it also provides a template for regional studies, including analysis of 2D and 3D seismic and other energy industry data to explore why existing marshes that look similar on the ground or from the air may respond to restoration measures with different levels of success. Properties of inherent durability and resilience can be exploited in restoration project selection, sequencing and expenditure. Issues encountered and investigative methods applied in the Biloxi Marsh are likely to resonate across initiatives now contemplated to sustain valuable river deltas worldwide.

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An open-source GIS-enabled lookup service for Nagoya Protocol party information

Database ◽

10.1093/database/baaa014 ◽

2020 ◽

Vol 2020 ◽

Author(s):

Hendrikje Seifert ◽

Marc Weber ◽

Frank Oliver Glöckner ◽

Ivaylo Kostadinov

Keyword(s):

Data Management ◽

Genetic Resources ◽

Open Source ◽

Scientific Data ◽

Research Data ◽

Benefit Sharing ◽

Cloud Infrastructure ◽

Clearing House ◽

Access And Benefit Sharing ◽

Nagoya Protocol

Abstract The Nagoya Protocol on Access and Benefit Sharing is a transparent legal framework, which governs the access to genetic resources and the fair and equitable sharing of benefits arising from their utilization. Complying with the Nagoya regulations ensures legal use and re-use of data from genetic resources. Providing detailed provenance information and clear re-usage conditions plays a key role in ensuring the re-usability of research data according to the FAIR (findable, accessible, interoperable and re-usable) Guiding Principles for scientific data management and stewardship. Even with the framework provided by the ABS (access and benefit sharing) Clearing House and the support of the National Focal Points, establishing a direct link between the research data from genetic resources and the relevant Nagoya information remains a challenge. This is particularly true for re-using publicly available data. The Nagoya Lookup Service was developed for stakeholders in biological sciences with the aim at facilitating the legal and FAIR data management, specifically for data publication and re-use. The service provides up-to-date information on the Nagoya party status for a geolocation provided by GPS coordinates, directing the user to the relevant local authorities for further information. It integrates open data from the ABS Clearing House, Marine Regions, GeoNames and Wikidata. The service is accessible through a REST API and a user-friendly web form. Stakeholders include data librarians, data brokers, scientists and data archivists who may use this service before, during and after data acquisition or publication to check whether legal documents need to be prepared, considered or verified. The service allows researchers to estimate whether genetic data they plan to produce or re-use might fall under Nagoya regulations or not, within the limits of the technology and without constituting legal advice. It is implemented using portable Docker containers and can easily be deployed locally or on a cloud infrastructure. The source code for building the service is available under an open-source license on GitHub, with a functional image on Docker Hub and can be used by anyone free of charge.

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Global flood hazard map and exposed GDP comparison: a China case study

10.5194/nhess-2020-1 ◽

2020 ◽

Author(s):

Jerom P. M. Aerts ◽

Steffi Uhlemann-Elmer ◽

Dirk Eilander ◽

Philip J. Ward

Keyword(s):

Return Period ◽

Flood Hazard ◽

Regional Scale ◽

Flood Protection ◽

Economic Losses ◽

Return Periods ◽

Hazard Maps ◽

High Exposure ◽

Pluvial Flooding

Abstract. Floods are among the most frequent and damaging natural hazard events in the world. In 2016, economic losses from flooding amounted to $56 bn globally, of which $20 bn occurred in China (Munich Re, 2017). National or regional scale mapping of flood hazard is at present providing an inconsistent and incomplete picture of floods. Over the past decade global flood hazard models have been developed and continuously improved. There is now a significant demand for testing of the global hazard maps generated by these models in order to understand their applicability for international risk reduction strategies and for reinsurance portfolio risk assessments using catastrophe models. We expand on existing methods for comparing global hazard maps and analyse 8 global flood models (GFMs) that represent the current state of the global flood modelling community. We apply our comparison to China as a case study and, for the first time, we include industry models, pluvial flooding, and flood protection standards in the analysis. We find substantial variability between the flood hazard maps in modelled inundated area and exposed GDP across multiple return periods (ranging from 5 to 1500 years) and in expected annual exposed GDP. For example, for the 100 year return period undefended (assuming no flood protection) hazard maps the percentage of total affected GDP of China ranges between 4.4 % and 10.5 % for fluvial floods. For the majority of the GFMs we see only a small increase in inundated area or exposed GDP for high return period undefended hazard maps compared to low return periods, highlighting major limitations in the models’ resolution and their output. The inclusion of industry models which currently model flooding at higher spatial resolution, and which additionally include pluvial flooding, strongly improves the comparison and provides important new benchmarks. Pluvial flooding can increase the expected annual exposed GDP by as much as 1.3 % points. Our study strongly highlights the importance of flood defenses for a realistic risk assessment in countries like China that are characterized by high concentrations of exposure. Even an incomplete (1.74 % of area of China) but locally detailed layer of structural defenses in high exposure areas reduces the expected annual exposed GDP to fluvial and pluvial flooding from 4.1 % to 2.8 %.

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Human Response to the Flood Hazard: III Flood Protection

Floods ◽

10.1007/978-1-349-27916-6_10 ◽

1978 ◽

pp. 144-172

Author(s):

Roy Ward

Keyword(s):

Flood Hazard ◽

Flood Protection ◽

Human Response

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Geoheritage in Deltaic Environments: Classification Notes, Case Example, and Geopark Implication

Environments ◽

10.3390/environments6020018 ◽

2019 ◽

Vol 6 (2) ◽

pp. 18 ◽

Cited By ~ 6

Author(s):

Anna Mikhailenko ◽

Dmitry Ruban

Keyword(s):

River Delta ◽

Anthropogenic Sources ◽

Full Spectrum ◽

River Deltas ◽

Geological Features ◽

Don River ◽

The Rich ◽

Ecosystem Interactions ◽

Geological Phenomenon

River deltas boast ecosystem richness, but their efficient conservation and management require consideration of the full spectrum of natural phenomena, including those which are geological. Few specialists have explored the issue of deltaic geological heritage (geoheritage), and the relevant knowledge remains scarce and non-systematised. This paper proposes the first classification of this geoheritage. Five categories are distinguished: entire-delta geological phenomenon, delta-associated “purely” geological features, delta-associated features resulting from geology–ecosystem interactions, geological features occasional to deltas, and geoarchaeological localities in deltas. Chosen as a case example, the Don River delta in the southwestern part of Russia possesses geoheritage of these categories, except for the latter. The relevant unique geological features differ by their types and ranks. Of particular interest is the phenomenon of a self-cleaning environment which prevents mercury concentration in the soil despite pollution from natural and anthropogenic sources. The complexity of the deltaic geoheritage, its co-existence with the rich biodiversity, and the aesthetical issues make geopark creation in river deltas a sensible venture. Relevant proposals have been made for Malaysia and the Netherlands–Belgium border, and the Don River delta in Russia also presents an appropriate location for geopark creation.

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spot: Open Source framework for scientific data repository and interactive visualization

SoftwareX ◽

10.1016/j.softx.2019.04.006 ◽

2019 ◽

Vol 9 ◽

pp. 328-331 ◽

Cited By ~ 2

Author(s):

Faruk Diblen ◽

Jisk Attema ◽

Rena Bakhshi ◽

Sascha Caron ◽

Luc Hendriks ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Open Source ◽

Interactive Visualization ◽

Scientific Data ◽

Data Repository ◽

Open Source Framework

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GIS based Development of MCDM Model for Flood Risk Management across Godavari Lower Sub-Basin of India

10.5194/egusphere-egu2020-4605 ◽

2020 ◽

Author(s):

B. Thanga Gurusamy ◽

Avinash D Vasudeo ◽

Aniruddha Dattatraya Ghare

Keyword(s):

Decision Making ◽

Risk Management ◽

Evolutionary Algorithms ◽

Objective Function ◽

Flood Risk ◽

Flood Hazard ◽

Flood Risk Management ◽

Flood Protection ◽

Hazard Zonation ◽

Hazard Risk

Abstract: Because of the uncertainty and high cost involved, the Absolute Flood Protection has not been considered as a rational decision. Hence the trend is to replace Absolute Flood Protection strategy by Flood Risk Management Strategy. This Paper focus on the development of Multiple Criteria Decision Making (MCDM) model towards Flood Risk Management (FRM) across Godavari Lower Sub-Basin of India using GIS based methodologies for Flood Hazard Zonation in order to achieve global minimum of the Flood predicted Risk level.&#160; Flood Hazard Zone Map for the historical flood events obtained with the use of GIS based Digital Elevation Models across the study area have been presented and used for the estimation of Hazard Risk. Uncertainty (or Control) Risk levels of each Flood estimated using various Flood Forecasting methodologies have been compared for the selected locations of the study area. Effectiveness of Passive Flood Protection Measures in the form of Flood Levees has been quantitatively analyzed for the increase in the Opportunity Risk and corresponding reduction in the Flood Hazard Risk. Various types of Multi-Objective Evolutionary Algorithms (MOEAs) have been used&#160; to determine a Compromise solution with conflicting criteria between Hazard Risk and Opportunity (or Investment) Risk and the results were compared for each of the selected levels of Flood estimated with corresponding uncertainty. Traditional optimization method in the form of Pareto-Optimal Front have also been graphically depicted for the minimization of both Hazard Risk Objective function and Opportunity Risk Objective Function and compared with those obtained using MOEAs. Watershed wise distribution of optimized Flood Risk variation across the Sub-basin has been presented graphically for both the cases of with and without active Flood Routing Measures. Keywords:&#160; Flood Risk Management; GIS based Flood Hazard Zonation; Multi-Criteria Decision Making; Multi-Objective Evolutionary Algorithms; Godavari Lower Sub-Basin of India;

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