Environmental Analysis of Flood Risk in Urban Planning: A Case Study in Las Quemadillas, Cordoba, Spain

Abstract

This paper presents a mapping procedure for determining the environmental impact of flooding in spatial planning. This procedure is applied to a section of the Guadalquivir River in the Quemadillas sector of Córdoba, southern Spain, where flood risks are of great importance because of improper riverside planning and the absence of prevention measures. We performed a comprehensive environmental analysis in conjunction with hydrological and hydraulic modelling using GIS techniques, allowing us to evaluate the flood hazard phenomena and the environmental impact based on the vulnerability and exposure of human activities. Hec-Ras application is implemented in GIS with GeoHecRas and we simulated flooding processes different flows for return period of 2, 100 and 500 years. Three-dimensional models are made for flood analysis and isobath and isotach maps. These low-cost maps are effective in the prevention and mitigation of flood risks, which makes them useful in the early stages of urban planning.

Spatial Modeling through GIS Analysis of Flood Risk and Related Financial Vulnerability: Case Study: Turcu River, Romania

“…HEC-RAS allows the integration of GIS spatial databases through the HEC-GeoRAS extension belonging to the ArcGIS/ArcMap program. Three types of hydraulic and hydrodynamic models can be used for hydraulic modeling: one-dimensional (1D) [39,40], two-dimensional (2D) [41,42], combined (1D/2D) [43,44] and three-dimensional (3D) [45]. For the analysis carried out in the 1% flood band of the Turcu River (Olt basin, Romania), the 1D model could be successfully used, which is easy to generate [46], process and use, but, compared to the other models, it has the disadvantage of some limitations, such as the inability to simulate lateral flood wave diffusion and vertical turbulence.…”

"Transformative Actions towards Sustainable Development. The Case of Boscoreale Municipality, Italy "

“…Due to the lack of natural resources and to more and more common and intense phenomena with high-impact on urban systems (also caused by climate changes) local administrations, as decision-makers, are becoming primarily responsible for urban transformations, taking into account mitigation and adaptation measures to natural risks, looking at international planning experiences. In countries such as Spain, Australia, New Zealand and USA the adoption of strategies oriented to the reduction of national vulnerability has allowed to develop specific hazard adaptation plans at the urban scale (Depietri and McPhearson, 2018;Garrido and Saunders, 2019;Martínez-Graña and Gago, 2018;Saunders et al, 2007). In Italy, indeed, issues related to urban resilience to natural events are hardly visible in urban transformations' governance tools, even though Italy is a fragile country, where the effects of earthquakes, landslides and floods are usually amplified by changes in land use and soil sealing process.…”