SubProject #2

Developing probabilistic FF & DF early warning systems

SP Leader: JRC
Partners involved: JRC, ULANC, MeteoSwiss, SMC, UPC-CRAHI, UPC-GITS, CUGRI, UKZN

Objective: Provide guidance for an early detection and warning of phenomena potentially giving raise to FF & DF developing a tool for identification of high risk areas and a probabilistic FF & DF early warning systems.

Task 2.1: Compilation of the different flood risk management plans available in the test-bed regions to evaluate impacts, and identify potential danger/risk/vulnerable areas in FF & DF generating events [CUGRI, UPC-GITS].
Task 2.2: Preliminary FF & DF risk assessment at large scale and development of a methodology to identify and map the potential high risk areas using simplified models coming from previous studies based on selected indicators computed from GIS information on test-beds (Wang et al., 2008; Wilford, 2004, He et al., 2003; Liu et al., 2002; Jackob, 2005) [ULANC, UPC-GITS, CUGRI, UPC-CRAHI, JRC]
Task 2.3: Development of an early FF/DF awareness system by adapting methodologies developed for the European Flood Alert System to regional scale (EFAS-FF/DF) to increase preparedness for potential events using COSMO-LEPS rainfalls. This task will provide a European coverage of FF/DF awareness on a 5km grid for 1-2 days ahead and the possibility to downscale to 1km in the testbeds when FF/DF hazards are simulated on the coarse grid (Younis et al., 2008; Bartholmes et al., 2008, Thielen et al. 2008) [JRC, METEOSWISS, SMC, ULANC]
Task 2.4: Development of a second version of the FF & DF early warning system based on the straightforward analysis of the forecast precipitation ensembles provided by WP1 and on their interaction with the landscape. The warnings for lead times of the order of hours up to one day are issued by comparing accumulated rainfall forecast on the surface drained areas for any 1 km pixel in the test-beds against reference threshold selected taking into account the potential risk areas identified in Task 2.2. [JRC, METEOSWISS; UKZN, ULANC, SMC, UPC-CRAHI]