Spatial and temporal variation of muddy floods in central Belgium, off-site impacts and potential control measures

Evrard, Olivier; Bielders, Charles; Vandaele, Karel; Wesemael, Bas van

doi:10.1016/j.catena.2006.11.011

Cited by 98 publications

(83 citation statements)

References 38 publications

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“…Carroll et al, 2004), land management (e.g. Boardman et al, 2003;Evrard et al, 2007) and soil management (e.g. Holman et al, 2003) in reducing runoff generation and flood risk has risen considerably in recent years within political and public environments.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Estimating the impact of rural land management changes on catchment runoff generation in England and Wales

Hess

Holman

Rose³

et al. 2010

Hydrological Processes

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Abstract:Although reviews of the scientific literature have failed to demonstrate conclusive evidence for the impact of rural land management on peak runoff rates, increasing emphasis is being placed by policy makers on its role in catchment-scale flood risk management. Poor soil and field conditions can lead to higher rates of runoff from extreme rainfall events; however, the improvement of land condition will lead to differing runoff responses depending on land use, soil type and climatic regime. This study has evaluated the relative impact of improvement of field and soil conditions on peak daily runoff rates for a range of soils and vegetation cover types across England and Wales. It has shown that rural land management changes could be expected to make a positive contribution to sustainable flood risk management, especially for more frequent events. The greatest relative reduction in runoff can be achieved through the improvement of degraded permeable soils under managed grassland in drier regions. Taking a plausible scenario of land management improvement in arable and grassland systems, the relative reduction in peak runoff was estimated for 518 policy units as defined in the Environment Agency's Catchment Flood Management Plans. For the 1 in 100 year event, there were only a few policy units where the expected reduction in runoff exceeded 5%. Rural land management practices which are likely to be beneficial to flood risk management may afford some protection to areas where structural measures may not be implemented for cost-benefit reasons, and may help to offset some of the anticipated increases in flood risk associated with climate change.

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Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Estimating the impact of rural land management changes on catchment runoff generation in England and Wales

Hess

Holman

Rose³

et al. 2010

Hydrological Processes

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“…These regions have in common a high population density together with intensive agriculture in areas of high rainfall where soils are very sensitive to erosion. Muddy floods result in considerable financial costs to the local authority for cleaning up and for compensation of victims (Verstraeten and Poesen, 1999;Evrard et al, 2007). After such an event, there are often plans to set up protective water management systems to avoid runoff from agricultural land reaching the urban areas.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Adaptation of the curve number approach to runoff estimation for loamy soils over a growing season for winter wheat: Comparison with the STREAM approach

2009

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This paper proposes an adaptation of the curve number (CN) approach to runoff estimation in an agricultural context. The approach is proposed for the north-western European loess belt regions whose soils are very sensitive to surface crusting which can lead to runoff, soil erosion and muddy flows. The likelihood of runoff is assessed from the sequence of soil surface states generated by cultivation practices. The new approach is based on the calculation of CN values for each stage of the soil-surface-state sequence. The approach is described for wintersown wheat, which is the main crop of the European loess belt. The authors define a sequence made up of six stages from wheat sowing to sowing of a green manure (mustard) after wheat harvest. Use of a long-term network of experimental plots set up in Upper Normandy enables protocols to be defined for calculating runoff for each of these stages. Results were compared to those obtained with the STREAM model. Runoff calculated from the CNs appeared to agree with the measured values, whereas results obtained with the STREAM model are less accurate. Starting from there, the authors provide the basis of a diagnostic tool based on the new CN approach using the soil surface conditions characterisation for adjusting CN data for cultivation practices not yet tested on experimental plots.

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“…As there are no such data concerning SWFs (Steinbrich et al, 2016), we must exploit other data sources in order to quantify the relevance of this flood type in space and time. Possible data sources include, but are not limited to, insurance claim records (e.g., Spekkers et al, 2013;Zhou et al, 2013;Moncoulon et al, 2014;Bernet et al, 2016;Grahn and Nyberg, 2017), disaster databases (e.g., Gall et al, 2009;Kron et al, 2012), press reports (e.g., Hilker et al, 2009) and interviews with or reports from affected people (e.g., Thieken et al, 2007;Evrard et al, 2007;Gaitan et al, 2016). All data sources are probably subjected to a varying degree of a socalled "threshold bias", which refers to the bias introduced due to varying damage inclusion criteria (Gall et al, 2009).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Surface water floods in Switzerland: what insurance claim records tell us about the damage in space and time

Bernet

Prasuhn

Weingartner

2017

Nat. Hazards Earth Syst. Sci.

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Abstract. Surface water floods (SWFs) have received increasing attention in the recent years. Nevertheless, we still know relatively little about where, when and why such floods occur and cause damage, largely due to a lack of data but to some degree also because of terminological ambiguities. Therefore, in a preparatory step, we summarize related terms and identify the need for unequivocal terminology across disciplines and international boundaries in order to bring the science together. Thereafter, we introduce a large (n = 63 117), long (10-33 years) and representative (48 % of all Swiss buildings covered) data set of spatially explicit Swiss insurance flood claims. Based on registered flood damage to buildings, the main aims of this study are twofold: First, we introduce a method to differentiate damage caused by SWFs and fluvial floods based on the geographical location of each damaged object in relation to flood hazard maps and the hydrological network. Second, we analyze the data with respect to their spatial and temporal distributions aimed at quantitatively answering the fundamental questions of how relevant SWF damage really is, as well as where and when it occurs in space and time.This study reveals that SWFs are responsible for at least 45 % of the flood damage to buildings and 23 % of the associated direct tangible losses, whereas lower losses per claim are responsible for the lower loss share. The Swiss lowlands are affected more heavily by SWFs than the alpine regions. At the same time, the results show that the damage claims and associated losses are not evenly distributed within each region either. Damage caused by SWFs occurs by far most frequently in summer in almost all regions. The normalized SWF damage of all regions shows no significant upward trend between 1993 and 2013. We conclude that SWFs are in fact a highly relevant process in Switzerland that should receive similar attention like fluvial flood hazards. Moreover, as SWF damage almost always coincides with fluvial flood damage, we suggest considering SWFs, like fluvial floods, as integrated processes of our catchments.

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Spatial and temporal variation of muddy floods in central Belgium, off-site impacts and potential control measures

Cited by 98 publications

References 38 publications

Estimating the impact of rural land management changes on catchment runoff generation in England and Wales

Estimating the impact of rural land management changes on catchment runoff generation in England and Wales

Adaptation of the curve number approach to runoff estimation for loamy soils over a growing season for winter wheat: Comparison with the STREAM approach

Surface water floods in Switzerland: what insurance claim records tell us about the damage in space and time

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