Platform for managing risks associated with extreme rainfall
Reducing the impact of floods in Vietnam through predictions and risk management
Central Vietnam is frequently affected by natural disasters, especially unexpected floods. In 2020, heavy rainfall, unexpected floods, and mudslides caused economic losses exceeding 1.5 million euros. From September to December 2021, Central Vietnam was hit by 4 consecutive storms and 6 heavy rains.
Due to climate change, these floods are expected to occur more frequently and intensively. Not only floods resulting directly from extreme rainfall but also reservoir-induced floods will become more common. Water is vital for agriculture in Vietnamese rural areas. Additionally, high tides can also exacerbate flooding risks. Prevention and risk management are therefore of huge importance.
Development of a flood risk management platform
A flood risk management platform is being implemented as a decision support system for both urban and rural areas. This platform will integrate various sources of relevant data for flood management and early warning.
In this platform developed by HydroScan, innovative tools are being implemented to predict floods and their economic impact. Vietnamese partners are being trained in the use of this platform, enhancing their understanding of events during extreme situations. This enables proactive interventions so people can be better prepared and take measures to mitigate damage and even save lives.
The platform will also include historical extreme events to enable better preparation for future occurrences. This entails creating flood maps that identify areas at higher risk of flooding and/or more vulnerable in terms of economic and social impact, taking into account changes based on climate change forecasts.
The platform is established based on HydroScan's Flood4Cast Real-time Alerter, a flood prediction software, and will be integrated with a new X-band rainfall radar.
The flood maps with varying probabilities of occurrence are generated using an integrated flood model in Flood4Cast Masterplanner. These maps serve to interpret real-time flood alerts on street level. Additionally, an economic risk model is linked to these flood maps to assess the economic damage resulting from the floods.
To achieve maximum impact, there is a close collaboration with three Vietnamese government agencies: VDDMA, NCHMF, and NCN. The "train the trainers" principle is applied to transfer knowledge to these partners, enabling them to operate it effectively and subsequently pass it on to local stakeholders and citizens.
Would you like to know more about this project?
