Flood Impact Assessments on Transportation Networks: A Review of Methods and Associated Temporal and Spatial Scales

A region's transportation sector is vital to its economic and social health. Transportation systems are also influenced by climate change directly and indirectly and on a variety of spatial and temporal scales. Under a changing climate, many regions around the globe and especially in urban areas, have experienced increases in flood intensity and frequency in recent decades. Flooding can strain transportation networks in both the short- and long-term through transportation delays, infrastructure damage, and recovery, and potentially affect economies. The present article is a review of how flooding impacts transportation networks in both short- and long-term timescales and their subsequent impact on resiliency of the network. Firstly, flood effects are classified based on the connections between the type of flooding and the type of impact (either direct or indirect) on the transportation system. An analysis of the assessment methods and the transport models used to formulate flood effects on the transportation system is provided, as well as the drawbacks from the context of timescales, and recommendations for future research. The analysis indicates that the majority of the articles assess the direct and tangible impacts with focus on the resilience of the transportation network in short- and medium-term temporal scales and at smaller spatial scales. There is less emphasis on indirect, intangible flood impacts, and long-term temporal scales.

CRITERIA OF RESILIENCE INFRASTRUCTURE IN FLOOD-PRONE AREAS IN KELANTAN: A PILOT STUDY

The resilience infrastructure systems can be described as capable of resisting, absorbing and recovering from flood effects in a timely and efficient manner. The resilience infrastructure systems can be achieved through the implementation of resilience criteria (i.e. robustness; resourcefulness; rapidity; and redundancy). The objective of this paper is to determine the most important resilience criteria to strengthen infrastructure systems in flood-prone areas in Kelantan. A cross-sectional survey was conducted among communities in flood-prone areas in Kelantan. A total of 23 criteria were analysed subjected to descriptive analysis. The results of the analysis showed that robustness is the most important criteria.

Solar-powered flood early warning system with short message service (SMS) notifications

<span>Flood is one of the most common hazards in Malaysia. Flood effects can be local, or very large, affecting the neighborhood or community and entire river basins. This flood develops slowly; sometimes over a period of days while sometimes develop quickly in just few minutes. With the real time flood information, it will allow public safety organizations and other emergency managers to effectively plan their resource deployment within the limited time of alert. Hence, this project aims to design the solar powered flood alert warning system by using solar energy as the power supply. This system will send message using GSM to the residents to notify them about the flood occurred. In this project, three LEDs were used to indicate the height of the water levels which are safe, alert and danger conditions. Each of the height have different water level that indicates the level of safety for each condition. </span>

Decision Support on Monitoring and Disaster Management in Agriculture with Copernicus Sentinel Applications

The successful implementation of the European Commission’s Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) and the insurance coverage in case of a natural disaster requires precise and regular mapping of crop types and detailed delineation of the disasters’ effects by frequent and accurate controls. Free and open access policy to Copernicus Sentinel data offers a big volume of data to the users on a consistent and complete basis. Today, the Sentinels are involved in an increasing number of agriculture applications, but their effective exploitation is still being investigated and the development of efficient tools, aligned to the user’s needs, is yet to be realised. To this end, the DiAS (Disaster and Agriculture Sentinel Applications) project proposes methods for decision support in agriculture using Sentinel data for crop type mapping, as well as mapping of the extend of fire and flood effects in agricultural areas. The DiAS Decision Support System (DSS) is designed in consultation with potential users in participatory approach and aims to provide a prototype tool, which provides assistance to the responsible paying agencies and insurance organizations to make decisions on farmers’ subsidies and compensations. The DiAS DSS prototype and its functionalities are presented in this paper and its use is demonstrated through example applications for two test sites in Greece. The DiAS DSS demonstrates the necessity for the development of similar tools, as this emerges from the user’s requirements, and wishes to stimulate and inspire further research and development.