The availability of water surface inundation with high spatial resolution is of fundamental importance in several applications such as hydrology, meteorology and ecology. Medium spatial resolution sensors, like MODerate-resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS), exhibit a significant potential to study inundation dynamics over large areas because of their high temporal resolution. However, t...

Flood disaster mitigation strategies should be based on a comprehensive assessment of the flood risk combined with a thorough investigation of the uncertainties associated with the risk assessment procedure. Within the “German Research Network of Natural Disasters” (DFNK) the working group “Flood Risk Analysis” investigated the flood process chain from precipitation, runoff generation and conce...

The predictive analysis of natural disasters and their consequences is challenging because of uncertainties and incomplete data. The present article studies the use of variable fuzzy sets (VFS) and improved information diffusion method (IIDM) to construct a composite method. The proposed method aims to integrate multiple factors and quantification of uncertainties within a consistent system for...

Flood disaster mitigation strategies should be based on a comprehensive assessment of the flood risk combined with a thorough investigation of the uncertainties associated with the risk assessment procedure. Within the ‘German Research Network of Natural Disasters’ (DFNK) the working group ‘Flood Risk Analysis’ investigated the flood process chain from precipitation, runoff generation and conce...

The most recent decades have witnessed record breaking losses associated with U.S. landfalling tropical cyclones (TCs). Flood-related damages represent a large portion of these losses, and although storm surge is typically the main focus in the media and of warnings, much of the TC flood losses are instead freshwater-driven, often extending far inland from the landfall locations. Despite this a...

Flood hedging reservoir operation is when a pre-storm release creates a small flood downstream to reduce the likelihood of a more damaging but uncertain larger flood in the future. Such pre-storm releases before a flood can increase reservoir storage capacity available to capture more severe flood flows, but also can immediately increase downstream flood damage and reduce stored water supply. T...

In Europe, water management is moving from flood defence to a risk management approach, which takes both the probability and the potential consequences of flooding into account. It is expected that climate change and socio-economic development will lead to an increase in flood risk in the Rhine basin. To optimize spatial planning and flood management measures, studies are needed that quantify f...

In March 2014, Congress passed legislation to halt discounted flood insurance premiums from increasing to full-risk levels. The rate hike was authorized two years earlier by the Biggert-Waters Act to address the National Flood Insurance Program’s structurally induced $24 billion debt. The recent developments highlight the tension between risk-based premium and affordability of flood insurance f...