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Attribution of flood risk in urban areas

Lookup NU author(s): Professor Richard DawsonORCiD, Linda Speight, Professor Jim Hall

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Abstract

Flooding in urban areas represents a particular challenge to modellers and flood risk managers because of the complex interactions of surface and sewer flows. Quantified flood risk estimates provide a common metric that can be used to compare risks from different sources. In situations where there are several organisations responsible for flood risk management we wish to be able to disaggregate the total risk and attribute it to different components in the system and/or agents with responsibility for risk reduction in order to target management actions. Two approaches to risk attribution are discussed: Standards-based attribution, which is a deterministic approach, based upon the performance of different engineering components in the system at their “design standard”. Sensitivity-based attribution, which apportions risk between the variables that influence the total flood risk. Whilst both these approaches are feasible for the small system considered here, in practice urban flooding systems involve tens of thousands of variables. The only feasible approach to tackling this problem for large urban systems is therefore by hierarchical simplification of the system, with the attribution analysis being applied in several tiers of detail. In this paper, the applicability of a hierarchical approach is demonstrated in the context of sewer pipe blockages. The results demonstrate the potential of attribution methods to support the development of integrated urban flood risk management strategies, as they can identify the forcing variables and infrastructure components that have the most influence upon flood risk.


Publication metadata

Author(s): Dawson RJ, Speight L, Hall JW, Djordjevic S, Savic D, Leandro J

Publication type: Article

Publication status: Published

Journal: Journal of Hydroinformatics

Year: 2008

Volume: 10

Issue: 4

Pages: 275-288

Date deposited: 11/04/2012

ISSN (print): 1464-7141

ISSN (electronic): 1465-1734

Publisher: IWA Publishing

URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.2166/hydro.2008.054

DOI: 10.2166/hydro.2008.054


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Funding

Funder referenceFunder name
Department of the Environment Food and Rural Affairs
Rivers Agency (Northern Ireland)
UK Natural Environment Research Council
Environment Agency of England and Wales
Infrastructure Management and Urban Flood Management Research Priority Areas of the Flood Risk Management Research Consortium (FRMRC)
Scottish Executive
UK Water Industry Research
GR/S76304/01UK Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council

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