The University

of Sustainable Flood Retention Basins

Edinburgh, Addressing Recent Flood Risk Management
Scotland Strategies

January 2009

Piotr Grabowiecki, MSc

SFRB A proposal for a Directive on the assessment and
Addressing management of floods, adopted by EU comission
Recent Flood
Risk
Management
Strategies • Document accepted in January 2006

• Provide preliminary flood Risk Assessments for

future flood occurence predictions

• Provide flood maps in order to:

→Increase societies’ awarness
→Support provision, justification and
development of sustainable policies
→Provide spatial planning tools and emergancy
plans

• Provide flood risk management plans, designed at

the level of river (sub)basin levels
→Member of States to decide on detailed
objectives and flood risk management
→Provide appropriate measures
SFRB
Addressing
Recent Flood A proposal for a Directive on the assessment and
Risk management of floods, adopted by EU comission
Management cont.
Strategies

• Proposals will vary between individual catchments

• Proposals will vary within individual catchments with

a specific emphasis on local conditions

• The above, will recognise historical and cultural

significance of the area, such as architectural objects
or whole cities/towns
SFRB
Addressing
Recent Flood Links with Water Framework Directive 2000/60/EC
Risk
Management
Strategies • Usage of the same catchemnts as administrative
units, already identified in WFD, article 3

• Work coordinations within river basins shall be

continued (usually shared between Member States)

• Implementation, reporting, databases shall be

synchronised and create unified timescale

• Public information and involvment should be used

as major tools for projects implementation and
avaliable to the above (maps, reports,models)
SFRB
Addressing • Future Flood Directive should provide:
Recent Flood
Risk → Preliminary Flood Risk Assessment
Management
Strategies → Flood Mapping

→ Flood Risk Management Plans

• As the result of FD preparation Flood Handbook

have been prepared, containing:

→ Examples of flood risk maps

→ Transbonduary flood hazard mapping

→ Insurance maps

→ Evacuation maps
SFRB
Addressing
Recent Flood
Risk
Management
Strategies

Source: http://www.multimap.com/clients/places.cgi?client=sepa
SFRB
Example Case Studies as a result of proposed Flood
Addressing
Directive
Recent Flood
Risk
Management
Strategies • Sustainable Flood Management Programme in Hungary
for Tisza River

• Sustainable Flood Management Action Programme in

Austria for Danube River

• Sustainable Flod Risk Management in Germany and

The Netherlands for Rivers Rhine and Meuse
SFRB
Addressing
Aims of Sustainable Development and Flood Risk
Recent Flood
Management
Risk
Management
Strategies
• Improve river enineering and navigation on European
rivers

• Improve natural environment development

(multifuncional land use)

• To provide social involvment, their actions and

communication

Structure of SD approach:

Planning → Implementation → Maintenance

with constant sustainable solutions and learning

SFRB
Addressing
Recent Flood Sustainable Development in the aspect of Action
Risk Plans of Flood Defence provides:
Management
Strategies • Space for local habitats and their natural development

• Creation of trans-national environment corridors

• Reduce flood Risk

• Borderless linkage between habitats along the river

• International co-operation on environmental prevention

• Environmental Impact Assessment cration for river

communities

• Exchange in staff involved during project co-operation

SFRB
Addressing What’s needed to give a river ‘more room’:
Recent Flood
Risk • Provide tools for more small floods to occur in the upstream
Management basin in order to reduce large downstream flooding
Strategies
• Identify certain ‘spots’ for flood measure installations

• Categorise engineering and natural, existing and possible

Flood Retention Basins

• Provide flood prevention tools in order to hold more intensive

precipitation in the upstream i.e. reverse urban development
in order to increase infiltration – flood peak attenuation

• Decrease land overflow introduced into the river headwaters

• Provide room for water alongside the river stream – lateral

space usage,
SFRB
Addressing Ways of lowering the flood peaks using ‘room-for-river’
Recent Flood approach
Risk
Management
• Dyke relocation
Strategies
• Flood bypass
• Floodplain lowering
• Providing retention areas beyond the river banks

Overall effect:

• Widening the river basin

• Provided space for flood peak lowering is used for river ‘self-
cleaning’

• Habitats quality improvement

• Provision of more green spaces used for recreational,

educational or sport activities
SFRB
Addressing
Recent Flood The role of Sustainable Flood Retention Basin
Risk classificaton:
Management
Strategies • Identify the areas of possible flood peaks retention in order
to increase local and national awarness

• Providing decision support tools for planners, landscape

managers, engineers and local comunities in SFRB
identification

• To provide tools for comparisons between different locations

and

• Improves landscape classification systems in order to

describe landscape functions in more detailed manner

• Improvement of local easthetics and provision green spaces

for local communities
SFRB
Addressing
Recent Flood So what is a Sustainable Flood Retention Basin?
Risk
Management SFRB is:
Strategies
‘an aesthetically pleasing retention basin predominantly used
for flood protection adhering to sustainable drainage and best
management practices’
(Scholz and Sadowski, 2009)

In the definition sustainable means the usage of SUDS

(Sustainable Urban Draiange Systems).

Major differeces of SFRB from SUDS:

• May not store water

• Are aesthetically correlated to the sourrounding landscape

FRB + SUDS techniques = SFRB

SFRB
Addressing
Recent Flood Types of SFRB
Risk
Management 4. HFRB (Hydraulic Flood Retention Basin)
Strategies 5. TFRB (Traditional Flood Retention Basin)
6. SFRW (Sustainable Flood Retention Wetland)
7. AFTW (Aesthetic Flood Treatment Wetland)
8. IFRW (Integrated Flood Retention Wetland)
9. NFRW (Natural Flood Retention Wetland)

Are the result of different type characteristics and

weightings used for the classification.

Most significant clasification variables:

Mean annual rainfall, seasonal influence, dam height,

natural catchment proporton, forest and animal passage
floodplain elevation, wetness, basin and channel connectivity,
etc.
SFRB
Addressing
Recommendations for future work
Recent Flood
Risk
Management
• Model improvement, such as different calssifications in
Strategies
order to confront existing model in order to find similarities
and weaknesses of current classification

• Incerase of the current database holdings in order to

exclude model errors and database management

• SFRB identification by spatial analysis (GIS, mapping

satellite images interpretation)

• Field checks for the corectness of increasing database

• Feedback requirement from professional bodies such as

councils, planning institutions, engineering organisations
for classification improvement

• Cost assessment and legislation action in order to

implement classification model in national and european
law
SFRB
Addressing
Sustainability = working for better future
Recent Flood
Risk
Management
Strategies

Source: www.inbo-news.org/ag2007/comms/7_10_45/Toth-Sandor.pdf
SFRB
Addressing References

Recent Flood
Risk • Hooijer, A., Li, Y., Kerssens, P., Van Der Vat, M. & Zhang, J., Year. Risk assessment as
a basis for sustainable flood management. In: G. Li, (ed.). 29th Annual Congress of the
Management International-Association-of-Hydraulic-Engineering-and-Research (IAHR), Beijing,
Strategies Peoples R China: Tsinghua University Press, 442-449.
• Hooijer, A., Klijn, F., Pedroli, G.B.M. & Van Os, A.G., 2004. Towards sustainable flood
risk management in the Rhine and Meuse river basins: Synopsis of the findings of
IRMA-SPONGE. River Research and Applications, 20, 343-357.
• Liska, I., 2005. Concerted efforts towards Sustainable Flood Protection in th Danube
River Basin. Geophysical Research Abstracts. European Geosciences Union. 7,
10820/2005.
• Nijland, H.J., Year. Sustainable development of floodplains (SDF) projected.^eds.
Workshop on Research and Technology Integration in Support of the European Union
Water Framework Directive, Ghent, BELGIUM: Elsevier Sci Ltd, 245-252.
• Scholz, M., 2007. Expert system outline for the classification of sustainable flood
retention basins (SFRBs). Civil Engineering and Environmental Systems, 24, 193-209.
• Scholz, M., 2008. Classification of flood retention basins: The Kaiserstuhl case study.
Environmental & Engineering Geoscience, 14, 61-80.
• Scholz, M. & Sadowski, A.J., 2009. Conceptual classification model for Sustainable
Flood Retention Basins. Journal of Environmental Management, 90, 624-633.
• Toth S., 2004. Sustanable Flood Management action programme of the Danube River
Basin with regard to flood forecasting and flood prevention. 2nd EFAS Workshop, EC
JRC, Ispra, Italy, November 10-12, 2004. PPS presentaton.