FloodProBE......In the News

Urban Resilience Conference, Paris, 3-4 November 2011

Mon, 03 Oct 2011 00:00:00 GMT

Damien Serre, working within Work Package 2 of the FloodProBE project, is co-organising a conference titled "How the concept of resilience is able to improve urban risk management? A temporal and spatial analysis", to be held in Paris on November 3rd - 4th 2011. Participating in the event will be Work Package 4 leader Chris Zevenbergen and also Rutger de Graaf also contributing in Work Package 4 of the FloodProBE project. A summary of the event can be found below.

Designing the territory adaptation capacities against natural risks has become an essential issue. Building adapted urban networks and cities that will face risk events induces to think this adaptation in a long term perspective. This adaptation capacity has to be done taking into account the spatial shapes of the specific environments, in particular the urban configurations, including the urban infrastructures and buildings, the urban shapes and future developments, and the social issues to plan the urban resilience.

This conference aims at making a research state of the art leading to the conception of antagonist issues: flooded cities - resilient cities, turning the negative effects of flood in a positive one allowing designing cities able to integrate flooding in their shapes and functions.

For more information, including a detailed programme and key dates please email Damien at damien.serre@eivp-paris.fr. You can register for the conference by emailing Estelle Deluca estelle.deluca@univ-mlv.fr

Media Coverage

Mon, 15 Aug 2011 00:00:00 GMT

As the FloodPRoBE project heads towards the completion of its 2nd year, news articles have been appearing across other media outlets promoting the work being carried out.

The DREAL Centre in France has added an article, in French, to their website, overviewing the work that is being carried out by the project. To view the article please click here. The DREAL Centre are involved in Work Package 3 which is led by Paul Royet of CEMAGREF.

FloodProBE has also appeared on the Flood Resilience Group website providing a summary of the 2nd stakeholder workshop that took place in Trondheim recently. Teh article can currently be found on the home page here. The article was written by Chris Zevenbergen who leads Work Package 4 of this project.

Also in Work Package 4 are project partners, DeltaSync, who were represented at the Trondheim workshop by Rutger de Graaf. A summary of the Workshop event can be found on the DeltaSync home page.

Thanks to Nicolas Auger, Chris Zevenbergen and Rutger de Graaf for submitting the articles to the websites and please let me know if you have seen FloodProBE promoted anywhere else.

FloodProBE: Internal Erosion

Wed, 27 Jul 2011 00:00:00 GMT

By the European Working Group on Internal Erosion of Large Dams (ICOLD), internal erosion is defined as "downstream transport of soil particles within an embankment dam or its foundation by seepage flow". The definition is a collective term for several mechanisms including suffosion, contact erosion, backward erosion and concentrated leak erosion. The relevance of the different mechanisms depend on geological conditions. These conditions may vary locally and across countries in Europe.

The Netherlands

In the Netherlands, backward erosion, or piping, is a dominant type of internal erosion. In January 2011, during a once every 10 year flood, dozens of sand boils were observed (see image). These observations indicate the beginning of failure by backward erosion. It is for that reason, not surprisingly, that in recent years much research has been done on backward erosion. In the Netherlands, this research has resulted in a new mathematical model and a new safety philosophy for backward erosion.

France

In France, suffusion and concentrated leak erosion are much larger problems. Suffusion involves selective erosion of fine particles from the matrix of coarser particles. It occurs when water flows through widely graded materials. Concentrated leakage involves the enlargement of pre-existing cracks or holes (e.g. along pipes in the levee) by detachment of soil particles due to seepage forces. In the Netherlands, little attention is paid to these mechanisms. In recent years, in France, calculation models and testing equipment have been developed for these types of internal erosion.

FloodProBE, Work Package 3

In FloodProBE workpackage 3, an overview of conditions under which the various failure mechanisms of internal erosion occur are being developed. This overview includes an array of significant geotechnical properties and methods to determine these properties in the field as well as the available empirical and physical-based models to assess their probability of occurrence. Furthermore, it describes observations that may indicate the occurrence of a particular mechanism. For the different European countries, the overview can be used to assess the relevance of possible modes of internal erosion.

Author: Han Knoeff

FloodProBE - Second Stakeholder Workshop

Fri, 01 Jul 2011 00:00:00 GMT

The Second Stakeholder Workshop attracted the attention of more than 45 participants from seven European countries and the United States. Associates from municipalities, members from the advisory board and researchers from the FloodProBEproject made their way to Trondheim, Norway in mid of May.

The main purpose of the workshop was the stakeholder involvement which is of main importance for the recent stage of the project. Stakeholders are, in the case of the FloodProBE project, representatives from different municipalities which play a key role in emergency planning and flood prevention in their specific cities. Their experience, knowledge and demands are essential input parameters for the project in order to develop cost effective means for flood protection.

During two days the workshop provided a mixture of technical presentations about preliminary outcomes of the FloodProBE project and presentations given by associates from European municipalities and different pilot locations.

Presentations from Dordrecht, Orleans, Trondheim and, Gloucester drew a clear picture about different types of flood risk. Due to the geographical location and density of population, the municipalities have to cope with different challenges. Some flood events in certain cities are so dramatic that thousands of people have to be evacuated. In other municipalities the worst case scenario foresees "only" flooded basements. However, flooding with larger or smaller consequences is always an issue for municipalities located close to rivers and the sea and the stakeholders are busy finding solutions for flood prevention.

The pilot site presentations and several working sessions provided the FloodProBE-researchers detailed insight into specific flood problems of European cities. The workshop intensified existing cooperation and brought up new connections between researcher and decision makers.

Beside a very comprehensive workshop a visit at SINTEF's Coast and Harbour Research Laboratory stood on the agenda. The visitors got the opportunity to "travel" to the Geiranger Fjord where a large block of stone is moving towards the fjord.

A physical model demonstrated what happens when the rock slides into the fjord. The visitors got the opportunity to guess how big the tsunami will be and how much time it is left until the first wave reaches the cities which are located along the fjord.

During the two days with presentations, work sessions, lab visit, and the conference dinner, in the Lerkendal football stadium, there was plenty of opportunities to build up new relations between researchers, associates and members from the advisory board.

The FloodProBE management was very pleased with the extraordinary stakeholder contribution and the output of the workshop which will bring the project a large step forward. The participants enjoyed their stay in Trondheim and the special experience that it does not get dark in the night.

We are looking forward to the next Stakeholder Workshop next year in Prague.

FloodProBE Goes Social!

Fri, 25 Mar 2011 00:00:00 GMT

FloodProBE has been growing a social following with the introduction of a twitter and linkedIn account! We'd like to invite you to join our growing community to keep up to date with all the latest news for this FP7 project. With the website being the central source of information, you may also like to select one of the options below to follow us on the move!

LinkedIn	Twitter	RSS Feed

LinkedIn - Our LinkedIn community is heading towards 50 members, allowing you to communicate and discuss topics with others who have similar interests and expertise to you. With the second stakeholder workshop approaching this provides you with a great opportunity to start your networking now and present questions for discussion.

Twitter - Twitter allows us to provide short updates on the projects progress as well as offering carefully selected news from other flood related tweeters.

RSS Feed - The RSS feed provides a method of viewing the latest news from FloodProBE on the move, at home or at work, without the need to visit the website. There are several RSS feed programmes that you can use either as standalone software or online tools.

News Subscription - If you prefer to recieve the news directly to your inbox, then please make sure you have subscribed via the website for updates. - http://www.floodprobe.eu/subscribe.asp

To be sure you hear all the latest news, make sure you are subscribed to one or more of our social media accounts!

FloodProBE - the first year

Tue, 16 Nov 2010 00:00:00 GMT

By the time you read this news-item FloodProBE may have passed its first Birthday.

Work in progress
A lot of activities and actions are ongoing that may not so obvious to many of you but contribute to efficient and effective cooperation amongst the 14 international partners from 7 European countries. However, in the coming period you should receive regular updates using a web-based tool developed by our project partner Samui-Design. This tool enables all partners and registered stakeholders to share information and publish news items.

Activities

In more general over the past period our project website has evolved as a working and communication environment with e.g. a document management system, a progress-reporting tool and which has been filled with technical information on the work packages. With the many organizational aspects linked to the start of an FP7-project now mostly behind us, we will focus more on research outcomes, the external communication and the implementation of results.
After the start on Nov. 1st 2009 the kick-off meeting brought almost 40 people to Oxford in early January despite snow-conditions not seen for a long time.
In April, we had our first stakeholder workshop with close to 50 participants, this time hampered by the impact of volcanic ash clouds.
The date and venue for the next workshop (17th - 19th of May 2011, Trondheim, Norway) have been set and preliminary activities to ensure a smooth organization are underway.

Research

In terms of research, the work package leaders have together with their team defined research implementation plans to elaborate which activities are specifically undertaken by each of the partners, including when and how they contribute to the strategic aims of the project. The advisory board has reviewed these and made suggestions from a stakeholder point of view. Specific attention has been paid to the links with the pilot projects to ensure that the R&D-activities relate to practice and outcomes can be quickly implemented.
FloodProBE also contributed to a science – policy interfacing workshop organized by the Commission in early July on "Climate Change Impacts and Adaption: Reducing Water-related Risks in Europe".

Historical floods - Hamburg

Fri, 12 Nov 2010 00:00:00 GMT

Storm and flooding - Hamburg 1962

The 1962 floods in Northern Germany were a natural disaster that resulted in a lot of damage and 340 deaths. On the night of 16-17 February, a storm with wind speeds up to 200 km/hr swept across the North Sea. The resulting storm surge, in combination with increased river discharges from heavy rains, led to a water level rise of more than 3 meters and breach of the flood defences along the rivers Elbe and Weser. In the city of Hamburg, flooding caused direct damage to 6000 buildings in an area of 20 km², mainly in the Wilhelmsburg district, where 315 deaths occurred. Advance storm warnings were only issued via the radio. During the night, large disruptions in communication systems prevented coordinated emergency response actions. But through his personal contacts with NATO and the German armed forces, Helmut Schmidt (who later became Chancellor of Germany), could start the first rescue attempts on the morning of 17 February.

The total damage amounted to € 350 million.

In the city of Bremen, flood defences were damaged, but to a lesser extent and due to early warnings and timely evacuations, only 7 people died.

In both cities, some areas were declared unfit for habitation, based on the flood risks. The event also led to the development of contingency plans as well as improvement of 575 km of flood defences. By 2010, the flood defences must reach a minimum height of 8.50 meters.

In the city of Bremen, flood defences were damaged, but to a lesser extent and due to early warnings and timely evacuations, only 7 people died.

One of the FloodProBE pilot sites - Humberside

Fri, 12 Nov 2010 00:00:00 GMT

2007 Flooding

In 2007 large parts of the Humber Eastuary, UK, were flooded. The floods cost homeowners, businesses, emergency services and others some £3.2bn

Strategy

The UK Environment Agency is working on implementing a strategy on the flood risk management in the Humber Estuary. This work already started in 2006. The strategy concerns upgrading and maintaining flood defences, managed realignements and flood storage sites. The programme has been granted a 55 mln pound government. Examples of the strategy's implementation are continuing refurbishment work on the Hull Tidal Barrier and a scheme to protect homes in Swinefleet, near Goole, and Brough. The strategy outlines general flood protection measures, but the specific needs of the protection will be assessed at a local level.

FloodProBE pilot site

Methodologies and technologies that are developed within the project will, where possible, be tested against local pilot conditions. The Humberside Estuary is also one of the FloodProBE pilot locations. Until now the project has tested a method for measuring seepage through the flood defences. This is part of the work package that deals with "the vulnerability of the built environment". It is one step in the process of adding knowledge to the cycle that leads to practical guidance.Insert of "flood protection areas" (Courtesy of the Environment Agency, UK)