Flooding
How do you gain timely insight into high water risks in your control area?
A high water level can cause major problems for society. When rivers overflow their banks, a lot of damage to lives, property, and infrastructure can result. Water managers are responsible for the safety of residents in this situation. They make choices during extreme conditions to limit damage as much as possible.
The correct prediction of the high water peak greatly informs crucial decisions pertaining to water system operations. Such decisions can result in the diversion of flow to utilize storage in locations with capacity, sparing more vulnerable areas and preventing flooding. Prediction of the storm peak relies on hydrolic models that ingest data such as water level and local discharge key points throughout the system. Currently, hydrologic model robustness falls short due to an inadequate number of discharge stations and a lack of resilience to failure of some existing stations. This results in less than reliable high water predictions during storms and creates significant risks.
To improve these situations, it is important to improve the quantity and quality of the data:
- Density of the flow measurement must be increased
- The chance of failure of discharge stations must be minimized
River Insight, Dischargedata As A Serice, is an opportunity to significantly increase the data quantity and quality.
