Early warning system for detection of urban pluvial flooding hazard levels in an ungauged basin

Melisa Acosta-Coll (), Francisco Ballester-Merelo and Marcos Martínez-Peiró
Additional contact information
Melisa Acosta-Coll: Universidad de la Costa CUC
Francisco Ballester-Merelo: Universitat Politècnica de València
Marcos Martínez-Peiró: Universitat Politècnica de València

Natural Hazards: Journal of the International Society for the Prevention and Mitigation of Natural Hazards, 2018, vol. 92, issue 2, No 32, 1237-1265

Abstract: Abstract Prolonged and high intensity rainfall often saturates urban drainage systems and generates urban pluvial flooding, resulting in hazardous flash floods. The city most affected by urban flooding in Colombia (South America) is Barranquilla since lacks a proper storm water drainage system. Heavy rainfall produces flash floods to quickly become torrential streams that flow down the streets endangering pedestrians. This research describes a low-cost early warning system (EWS) to detect in real time the hazard level of a stream in an ungauged basin. The EWS indicates whether it is safe or not for pedestrians to cross a flooded street, based on certain criteria used to assess the hazard level of the torrent. A hydrological and hydraulic model calculates the flow, velocity and water level in all cross sections along the stream. The model uses only real-time measurements of rain gauges and topographic survey data to determine the hazard level. Finally, a wireless sensor network sends the alert to a web platform and warns the community in real time.

Keywords: Early warning system; Flash floods; Hydrological model; Hydraulic model; Pluvial flooding; Urban drainage (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2018
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (2)

Downloads: (external link)
http://link.springer.com/10.1007/s11069-018-3249-4 Abstract (text/html)
Access to the full text of the articles in this series is restricted.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:spr:nathaz:v:92:y:2018:i:2:d:10.1007_s11069-018-3249-4

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.springer.com/economics/journal/11069

DOI: 10.1007/s11069-018-3249-4

Access Statistics for this article

Natural Hazards: Journal of the International Society for the Prevention and Mitigation of Natural Hazards is currently edited by Thomas Glade, Tad S. Murty and Vladimír Schenk

More articles in Natural Hazards: Journal of the International Society for the Prevention and Mitigation of Natural Hazards from Springer, International Society for the Prevention and Mitigation of Natural Hazards
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sonal Shukla () and Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing ().