About Book

For thousands of years floods have been among the most common and severe natural disasters on Earth, in terms of economic damage and loss of life. Flood geomorphology is considered to be the study of the role of floods in shaping the landscape, including the analysis of flood causes, flood processes, resistance factors to flood-induced landscape change, and changes in flood-related processes and forms through time. Floods in most river basins are caused by excessive rainfall generated by a variety of atmospheric mechanisms. In cold-winter regions, large floods can be generated from snow/ice melt, particularly in combination with rainfall, while along coastal-draining rivers extensive flooding may be associated with storm surge events. Floods are also generated from catastrophic failure of artificial (reservoirs) and natural lakes, a category that includes dams created by ice, glacial moraines, volcanic lava flows, and landslides. In this book, studies have been included to provide an insight into the flood geomorphology. It deals with flash flood, flood management, historical river floods, sustainable land use planning, rainfall simulation, geo-ecological zones, disaster-oriented USV, concrete structures and environmental changes. This book elucidates the concepts and innovations and respective developments with respect to this field. The topics included in this book are of utmost significance and are bound to provide incredible insights to readers about floods. It strives to provide a fair idea about this discipline and to help develop a better understanding of the latest advances within this field. This book is an essential guide for both academicians and those who wish to pursue this discipline further.

Preface............................................................................................................v

Chapter 1 Determinants of Coping Strategies to Floods and Droughts in Multiple Geo-Ecological Zones...............................................................1

Abstract...................................................................................................1

1. Introduction............................................................................................2

2. Study area and population, data collection and analysis.............4

3. Results and discussions.......................................................................7

4. Conclusion............................................................................................23

Chapter 2 Estimating Flood Quantiles on the Basis of Multi-Event Rainfall Simulation...................................................................................................28

Abstract.................................................................................................28

1. Introduction..........................................................................................29

2. Rationale for the study......................................................................30

3. Study areas and hydrow-meteorological data..............................33

4. MESEF method....................................................................................35

5. Comparing flood quantiles...............................................................42

6. Strengths and weaknesses of the MESEF method.......................44

7. Summary...............................................................................................44

Chapter 3 Design, Implementation and Modeling of Flooding Disaster-Oriented USV............................................................................................49

Abstract.................................................................................................49

1. Introduction..........................................................................................50

2. System design of flooding disaster-oriented USV........................52

3. USV dynamic modeling ...................................................................58

4. Application experiments....................................................................64

5. Conclusions..........................................................................................68

Chapter 4 Vulnerability of Reinforced Concrete Structures Subjected

to Flood.......................................................................................................71

1. Introduction..........................................................................................71

2. Literature review.................................................................................74

3. Methodology........................................................................................75

4. Experimental results...........................................................................82

5. Conclusions........................................................................................100

Chapter 5 A Flood Control Approach Integrated with a Sustainable Land Use

Planning in Metropolitan Regions ....................................................103

1. Introduction ......................................................................................103

2. The role of the municipality in water resource management in

Brazil ..................................................................................................105

3. Flood control in the Baixada Fluminense lowland ..................107

4. Results obtained in the modeling ................................................115

5. Conceptual discussion ....................................................................120

6. Proposed solutions for Iguaçu-Sarapuí River Basin .................122

7. Conclusion ........................................................................................126

Acknowledgement............................................................................128

Chapter 6 Analysis of Historical River Floods – A Contribution Towards

Modern Flood Risk Management.......................................................130

1. Introduction ......................................................................................130

2. Study area..........................................................................................132

3. Approaches and methods for reconstructing historical flood

events .................................................................................................133

4. Regionalisation of historical data..................................................137

5. Results of the case study.................................................................142

6. Discussion and conclusions............................................................150

7. Acknowledgements .........................................................................151

Chapter 7 Automated Integration of Geosensors with the Sensor Web to

Facilitate Flood Management...............................................................155

1. Introduction........................................................................................155

2. Background........................................................................................161

3. Flood management in the Wupper region..................................163

4. An architecture for the on-the-fly integration of geosensors..168

5. Application.........................................................................................173

6. Conclusions & outlook.....................................................................177

7. Acknowledgment..............................................................................178

Chapter 8 Management Strategies for Large River Floodplain Lakes Undergoing Rapid Environmental Changes....................................183

1. Introduction........................................................................................183

2. Materials and methods ...................................................................186

3. Management issues for large river floodplains lake

ecosystems..........................................................................................187

4. Prevailing conditions of biotic assemblages in changing large

river floodplain lakes.......................................................................194

5. Configuring management strategies of large river floodplain lake

ecosystems: Role of micro-crustaceans ........................................197

6. Conclusion..........................................................................................205

Chapter 9 Flash Flood Hazards...............................................................................217

1. Introduction ......................................................................................217

2. Flash flood research .......................................................................218

3. Flash flood modelling......................................................................226

4. Potential prediction models ...........................................................240

5. Conclusions .......................................................................................241

6. Acknowledgements .........................................................................242

Citation......................................................................................................251

Index...........................................................................................................253

About Author

Tucker Banga finished his Ph.D. in Environmental Sciences from Institute of Technology, Carlow. He is a keen enthusiast of environment protection and management. He serves as a Visiting Professor at Community College, Salzburg. He has written many articles and journals related to GIS database and remote sensing in irrigation, natural water resources, air pollution, natural disaster assessment, and flood risk management. Banga has presented 13 research papers in the field of emergency management. He has also attended numerous scientific conferences and symposiums.