DHI co-ordinates FLOOD RELIEF

FLOOD RELIEF - A real-time decision support system integrating hydrological, meteorological and radar technologies

Floods are the most common natural disasters in Europe and in terms of economic damage the most costly. The recent flooding in Germany, Hungary, the Czech Republic and Austria highlight the European dimension of flooding and the damage and disruption flooding can cause.

However the most significant impact of flooding is the tragic loss of life.

Timely and accurate flood forecasts provide cost-effective flood protection that enables flood managers to respond effectively to imminent flood hazard and can save lives. It is therefore well-timed that a group of seven European partners, have come together in a new project FLOOD RELIEF aimed at improving flood forecasting systems.

FLOOD RELIEF is supported by the European Commission under the Fifth Framework Programme and contributing to the implementation of the Key Action "Sustainable Management and Quality of Water" within the Energy, Environment and Sustainable Development.

The FLOOD RELIEF project aims to 1) develop and demonstrate a new generation of flood forecasting methodologies which will advance present capabilities and accuracies and 2) to make the results more readily accessible both to flood managers and those threatened by floods. This is achieved by exploiting and integrating different sources of forecast information, including improved hydrological and meteorological model systems and databases, radar, advanced data assimilation procedures and uncertainty estimation, into real-time flood management decision support tool designed to meet the needs of regional flood forecasting authorities

FLOOD RELIEF is being undertaken by a group of 7 European partners with complementary expertise in development and application of numerical weather forecasting systems, flood forecasting systems, radar, data assimilation, uncertainty estimation, flood warning and decision support tools.

DHI Water & Environment is co-ordinating this project including the development of the flood decision support system. DHI is already providing numerous flood forecasting systems both within Europe and world-wide and therefore the new developments can be transferred from this R&D initiative to operational flood forecasting and management technology. The benefits expected from this project are increased accuracy of both the quantitative precipitation forecasts and hydrological forecasts, cost-effective implementation of numerical weather modelling for precipitation forecasts and a highly accessible internet-based forecast information system. The resulting technologies will be demonstrated for regional forecasting in Poland and the UK.

For more information on the FLOOD RELIEF project please contact Michael Butts.