Hydrodynamic Modelling of Floods and Estimating Socio-economic Impacts of Floods in Ugandan River Malaba Sub-catchment

River Malaba sub-catchment tends to experience dramatic flooding events, with several socio-economic impacts to the nearby communities, such as loss of lives and destructions of physical infrastructure. Analysis of spatiotemporal extents to which settlements, crops and physical infrastructures tend to be inundated are vital for predictive planning of risk-based adaptation measures. This paper presents a case study on flood risk assessment for Ugandan River Malaba sub-catchment. We applied the two-dimensional Hydraulic Engineering Center’s River Analysis System (2D HEC-RAS) for modelling of flooding extents. We considered extreme flow quantiles, lower and upper quantiles corresponding to the 95% confidence interval limits aimed at determining uncertainties in the flooding extents. Spatial extents of inundation on human settlement, land cover and infrastructure were analysed with respect to return periods of extreme flow quantiles. Finally, we estimated economic loss on infrastructure due to flooding. Results from the 2D HEC-RAS model were satisfactorily comparable with the results of observations. Amongst the land use types, cropland exhibited the highest vulnerability with at least 10,234.8 hectare (ha) susceptible to flooding event of 100-year return period (YRP). Inundated built-up land-use exhibited the highest vulnerability percentage increase (90%) between 2- and 100-YRP. In US Dollar, about US$ 33 million and US$ 39 million losses are estimated at 2- and 100-YRP, respectively, due to inundated rice gardens and these indicate a looming high risk of household food insecurity and poverty. Several infrastructure including 15 academic institutions, 12 health facilities, 32 worshiping places remain annually vulnerable to flooding. At least 6 km and 7 km of road network are also susceptible to flooding under extreme flows of return periods 2 and 100 years, respectively. Churches exhibited the highest economic losses of US$ 855,065 and US$ 1,623,832 at 2-YRP and 100-YRP, respectively. This study findings are relevant for planning the development of sustainable flood risk adaptation pathways given the established destructions within the sub-catchment due to flooding.

The Impact of the Construction of a Dam on Flood Management

A possible strategy to mitigate the effects of flooding from an area identified as having high runoff potential will reduce the volumes of water that overflow the drainage area and build a system of a storage location in the coastal city of Tangier. The study is based on two main axes: (i) the extreme flow frequency analysis, using eight probability laws adjusted by the Maximum Likelihood method, and (ii) the estimation of the flood outflows at the dam outlet using the routing method in order to assess the effect of detention dams on water flood. Annual (Maximum) series based flood sampling procedure is adopted for constructing the Flood Frequency analysis. A numerical comparison of AIC criteria and BIC has allowed a proceeding to the selection of the most fitted law distributions. The result shows that the Gumbel law is best adapted to the predetermination of the extreme flow estimation in the Mghogha watershed for different return periods. The reservoir routing method along with rainfall-runoff processes were applied by the mean of the HEC-HMS model. The model was run under two different scenarios. Scenario 1 simulates the Mghogha basin with the absence of the reservoir. Meanwhile, scenario 2 simulates the same basin by taking into account the existence of the Ain Mechlawa reservoir within different return periods of from 2 to 200 years. Peak discharges downstream have been dramatically attenuated and water volumes have been decreased with the prolongation of the return period. For the 100 and 200 return periods, the peak discharge of flood reduction for scenario 1 and scenario 2 were 52.06 and 52.17 %, respectively, and for the flood volume was 22.46 and 22.82% respectively. Finally, the results of investigations showed a good performance of the model in the estimation of outflow peak discharge of the Ain Mechlawa Dam. Doi: 10.28991/cej-2021-03091658 Full Text: PDF

Archetypal analysis of Southern Hemisphere extreme circulation events

<p>Archetypal analysis of Southern Hemisphere extreme circulation events</p><p>This work conducts an archetypal analysis (AA) of midtropospheric flow<br>in the Southern Hemisphere.  The analysis identifies the archetypical<br>extreme flow states and compares them with the leading modes of<br>variability from Principal Component Analysis (PCA) methods.  In<br>particular, we examine long-lived extreme circulation patterns and<br>events from both AA and PCA, together with their synoptic signatures<br>and surface impacts.  The long-lived circulation types are efficient at<br>generating surface temperature extremes and exhibit long period<br>variability.  Case studies of documented surface extreme events show<br>that they correspond clearly to the midtropospheric flow archetypes.</p><p> </p>

Future shifts in extreme flow regimes in Alpine regions

Extreme low and high flows can have negative economic, social, and ecological effects and are expected to become more severe in many regions due to climate change. Besides low and high flows, the whole flow regime, i.e., annual hydrograph comprised of monthly mean flows, is subject to changes. Knowledge on future changes in flow regimes is important since regimes contain information on both extremes and conditions prior to the dry and wet seasons. Changes in individual low- and high-flow characteristics as well as flow regimes under mean conditions have been thoroughly studied. In contrast, little is known about changes in extreme flow regimes. We here propose two methods for the estimation of extreme flow regimes and apply them to simulated discharge time series for future climate conditions in Switzerland. The first method relies on frequency analysis performed on annual flow duration curves. The second approach performs frequency analysis of the discharge sums of a large set of stochastically generated annual hydrographs. Both approaches were found to produce similar 100-year regime estimates when applied to a data set of 19 hydrological regions in Switzerland. Our results show that changes in both extreme low- and high-flow regimes for rainfall-dominated regions are distinct from those in melt-dominated regions. In rainfall-dominated regions, the minimum discharge of low-flow regimes decreases by up to 50 %, whilst the reduction is 25 % for high-flow regimes. In contrast, the maximum discharge of low- and high-flow regimes increases by up to 50 %. In melt-dominated regions, the changes point in the other direction than those in rainfall-dominated regions. The minimum and maximum discharges of extreme regimes increase by up to 100 % and decrease by less than 50 %, respectively. Our findings provide guidance in water resource planning and management and the extreme regime estimates are a valuable basis for climate impact studies. Highlights Estimation of 100-year low- and high-flow regimes using annual flow duration curves and stochastically simulated discharge time series Both mean and extreme regimes will change under future climate conditions. The minimum discharge of extreme regimes will decrease in rainfall-dominated regions but increase in melt-dominated regions. The maximum discharge of extreme regimes will increase and decrease in rainfall-dominated and melt-dominated regions, respectively.