Automation of flood contingency plans: Benefits and implementation experiences

Abstract

In the Netherlands, Water Boards are responsible for the performance of flood defence works. They use contingency plans to handle the complex situation during flood threat situations. Depending on the expected water level, responsibilities change and actions have to be taken. Recent flood threat situations have caused awareness that the human factor constitutes an important risk. Consequently, an automated tool called Geautomatiseerd Draaiboek Hoogwater (GDH/Automated Flood Contingency Plan) was developed Automation of information management can cause a significant reduction of risk: by using computers for what they are good at (storing information, handling predefined procedures), humans can focus on what they are better at: dealing with unexpected developments and making decisions based on incomparable criteria During the development of the tool, intense involvement from flood managers is essential. They take part in development of functional specifications, testing of the tool, implementation and finally evaluation, leading to improvement The result is GDH: a generic tool that any flood risk management organisation can use to automate its own contingency plan and that serves as an information management tool during floods. Main features: – presentation of all relevant information in a consistent form; – warnings to the flood manager if required actions are not taken in time; – automatic communication by fax, text or e-mail; – automatic logging of all actions (both by system and operator), enabling full post event evaluation; – basic ingredients of situation reports. Work is in progress to improve the GDH user interface including full GIS functionality Implementation of the tool is a major activity. It requires thorough analysis of the existing contingency plans, because GDH demands consistency in the base documentation. As a result, implementation of GDH will often lead to improvement of the contingency plans. After technical implementation, the next step is organisational implementation.