Geographic information system for flood hazard analysis and early warning using numerical weather predictions

Abstract

Floods are a phenomenon which causes significant losses of lives as well as property damage, which in turn severely impact the local economy. The nature of a flooding has been well researched, and several methods of flood hazard simulation have been established over the last decades. The current legislation in the European Union requires the Member States to create, maintain and update flood risk and hazard maps, as well as identify possible sources of flooding. In the Tricity area in Northern Poland, the historical records indicate that one of the most common causes offlooding are high amounts of rainfall which cause a sudden surge of the water levels in the Vistula River estuary. This was the reason for the tragic flood of 2001, which caused damages worth millions and affected thousands of people. Over the last decade, the City invested millions in rebuilding the infrastructure and creating flood prevention and early warning measures. The paper presents a Geographic Information System which aims to provide early warning as well as flood risk assessment in semi-real time. For this purpose the system is integrated with a weather forecast model and a flood simulation model. The simulation results are automatically made available to interested parties via a user-friendly Web-based client.