The Environment Agency has published a detailed review of existing modelling software, mapping techniques and data used for flood risk management planning.
The aim of the review is to establish how they could be used to assess a wide range of catchment processes to help develop flood and coastal erosion risk management projects that ‘work with natural processes’ to reduce flood risk.
The outputs will help flood risk specialists to understand how their catchment works and identify potential data, tools and models they could use when undertaking a working with natural processes scheme in their catchment.
After widespread flooding in summer 2007 the Pitt Review concluded that flooding from a range of sources can no longer be managed by building ever higher, lengthier and heavier defences in urban and rural areas. The review emphasised the need to ‘work with natural processes’ as part of integrated portfolios of responses to flooding andcoastal erosion. Working with natural processes means:
‘taking action to manage fluvial and coastal flood and coastal erosion risk by protecting, restoring and emulating the natural regulating function of catchments, rivers, floodplains and coasts’.
The Agency said that while there are many different tools and levels of approximation that can be used to model the movement of water through a catchment, the models, data and tools available for this alternative form of flood and coastal erosion risk management have not yet been benchmarked.
The review has focused on models used to assess:
- run-off generation
- sediment processes
- in-channel barriers
- river floodplain barriers
- diffuse pollution
Key products developed by the project include:
- a catchment process flow chart to help understand how a catchment works and to identify potential data, tools and models to use when undertaking a working with natural processes scheme in a catchment
- an electronic library of tools which provides a detailed summary of a range of tools, data and models to help select the right tools for a catchment;
- a detailed summary of models, tools and data to help understand how different tools can be used to assist planning from flood source to flood scheme
- a series of 20 case studies which provide examples of how different models have been used to model a range of catchment processes across the UK
The following 3-step process has been developed to help users select the right models, data and tools to use in a catchment study:
Step 1 involves using the Microsoft® Excel based model library to help select suitable models, data and tools which are the most relevant to a study.
Step 2 allows practitioners to find out more about the models, data and tools selected from the model library which can be used to assess a range of catchment processes. For each process, details are given of the key functionality of a range of tools.
Step 3 involves using the 20 detailed case study examples to explore whether the models, data and tools a practitioner has selected are appropriate for use in their catchment.
Click here to download How to model and map catchment processes when flood risk management planning
Click here to download the case studies
Waterbriefing is media partner with the Institution of Civil Engineers keynote Flooding and Water Management Conference 2016 taking place in London on Thursday 30th June. Click here for more information about the conference.
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