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Floodplain is an important location for the economic and social development of society throughout history, although it afflicted by different disasters like floods and bank erosion from time to time. Population dynamics and distribution trends have important effects on the landscape and society. Population dynamics in floodplains influenced mostly by the flood events and related human activities to protect themselves and the properties. Thus, floodplain population dynamics is vital to understand human-nature relationships, disaster risk assessment, flood forecasting and flood damage costs in the floodplains. Economic losses and fatalities due to flood events increase with increased flood frequency and flood magnitude. Extreme hydrological changes are responsible for such changes in the flood events. Population growth, urbanization and developmental activities worsened the situation further in the floodplain areas. Learning effect, i.e. flood memory is noticeable after the flood which diminishes with time, however, levee, which is a popular flood protection measure, causes further reduction of learning effect. Researchers suggest that levees create a false sense of safety and can influence the mobilization of floodplain population. Several pieces of research indicate that along with flood events and intervention measures, inundation depth, durations, flood type (coastal/ riverine), economic, technological and political characteristics of the societies influence flood memory, hence, influence floodplain population dynamics. However, long term floodplain population dynamics and how it is related to different flood-related, i.e. hydrological and sociological variables are yet to be confirmed. Flood is one of the major natural disasters in the United States. About 10% of the population lives in the 100-year and 500-year floodplain of the United States. This study carried out to investigate the long-term trend of floodplain population dynamics in the USA and how the dynamics changes from country to state to county level considering Arkansas State and Sebastian County to observe the difference. Also, the relationships of floodplain population dynamics with hydrological and sociological variables such as flood events, damage, intervention measures and poverty assessed in the national, state and county level. Then the dynamics of the national level, the state (Arkansas) level and the county (Sebastian) level were compared to identify changes in dynamics from macro to micro-scale. Floodplain population dynamics evaluated in terms of population growth rate and the ratio of floodplain population to the total population from 1790 – 2010. The median centroids of the population growth rate from 1790 – 2010 were estimated to observe the changes in the central tendency of the population growth rate in the total area and in the floodplain overtime to locate the typical place of floodplain population growth. High-resolution raster image (1 km x 1 km) of historical population data and a high-resolution raster image (250 m x 250 m) of floodplain data were analysed using ArcGIS to evaluate floodplain population dynamics. Historical data regarding flood events, damage, structural and non- structural flood intervention measures and poverty from available databases were extracted, processed and analysed to establish the relationship among population dynamics, hydrological and social variables. Finally, the population dynamics of the three levels were compared statistically and discussed for changes. It is found that the central tendency of the total population growth rate and floodplain population growth rate of the USA shifts from east to west direction. The central tendency of the overall population growth rate located near the lower Mississippi river basin in the 1800s. It is consistent near the geographical centroid of the USA in Kansas since 1900. For the floodplain population, the central tendency of the growth rate stayed consistent in Arkansas from 1910 – 2010, i.e. in the lower Mississippi river basin. This location indicates the floodplains in Arkansas was preferable for floodplain population settlement for many decades. Change in floodplain population proportion of the whole country USA from 1790 – 2010 shows that the proportion of floodplain population is more than 80% during the initial years of settlement. Then it reduced to less than 40% over time. At the state level – Arkansas, the proportion of floodplain population is also more than 80% during initial settlement and reduced to less than 60% over time for counties with high percentage floodplain area. Flood events, structural and non-structural protection measures influenced floodplain population dynamics over time and learning effect, i.e. social memory of flood found was seven years. At the county level- Sebastian county, Arkansas, the proportion of floodplain population varies significantly with a variance of 0.04 and a standard deviation of 0.19. The ratio of floodplain population in Sebastian was 29% in 1820, which increased and decreased over the years and about 70% in 2010. In addition to flood events, different intervention measures, the floodplain population dynamics in the Sebastian county are influenced by the social, economic and political phenomenon, examining which is out of the scope of this study. The learning effect of flood seems to be eight years in the case of Sebastian county. The population dynamics influenced by a different social, geographical, economic, political and hydrological phenomenon which makes it a complicated system to comprehend within the present scope of the study. The result shows that the floodplain population dynamics can vary for different geographical scale. Therefore, the geographic extent should also need to consider while using population dynamics in flood disaster management and mitigation strategy development, policy formulation and implementation. / Flodslätter är viktiga platser för samhällets ekonomiska samt sociala utveckling och har varit det sedan är lång tid tillbaka, även om de från och till har drabbats av olika katastrofer såsom översvämning och erosion. Översvämning är en av de största naturliga katastrofer som sker i USA. Ungefär 10 % av befolkningen bor i 100- och 500-års flodslätter som emellertid förändras på grund av olika anledningar, inklusive översvämningar. I denna studie undersöks den tillfälliga relationen mellan översvämning, relaterad skada, olika ingripande åtgärder och fattigdomsnivå med en befolkningsdynamik i flodslättsområden. Vidare sker denna undersökning i tre olika nivåer – nationellt: USA som ett helt land, stats-nivå: Arkansas och län: Sebastian County, Arkansas där de olika dynamikerna i de tre nivåerna jämförs. På den nationella nivån utvärderades befolkningsdynamiken med avseende på flodslätten till den totala populationen och befolkningstillväxt. Resultatet visar att befolkningsdynamiken förändras beroende på om den betraktas ur ett nationellt, statligt eller läns perspektiv. Ur ett nationellt perspektiv flyttar flodslättsbefolkningar till olika områden med tiden. Ur ett statligt perspektiv är flodslättsbefolkningar känsliga mot översvämningar, skada och olika ingripande åtgärder. På länsnivå, utöver översvämningsrelaterade variabler, är flodslättsbefolkningar känsliga mot andra socio-ekonomiska faktorer som inte behöver vara relaterade till översvämningar. Resultatet indikerar således att översvämningar inte alltid behöver vara den faktorn som styr befolkningsdynamiken i flodslättsområden på den lokala nivån samt beslutet att flytta till en flodslätt påverkas av olika socio- ekonomiska faktorer, inklusive översvämning. På den nationella nivån kan däremot både påverkan av översvämningar och relaterade variabler på befolkningsdynamiken i flodslättsområden observeras.

Climate and human activities impact the timing and quantity of streamflow and floods in different ways, with important implications for people and aquatic environments. Impacts of landscape changes on streamflow and floods are known, but few studies have explored the magnitude, duration and count of floods the landscape can influence. Understanding how floods are influenced by landscape structure provides insight into how, why and where floods have changed over time, and facilitates mapping the capacity of watersheds to regulate floods. In this study, I (1) compared nine flood-return periods of 31 watersheds across North Carolina and Virginia using long-term hydrologic records, (2) examined temporal trends in precipitation, stream flashiness, and the count, magnitude and duration of small and large floods for the same watersheds, and (3) developed a methodology to map the biophysical and technological capacity of eight urban watersheds to regulate floods. I found (1) floods with return periods ≤ 10 years can be managed by manipulating landscape structure, (2) precipitation and floods have decreased in the study watersheds while stream flashiness has increased between 1991 and 2013, (3) mapping both the biophysical and technological features of the landscape improved previous efforts of representing an urban landscape's capacity to regulate floods. My results can inform researchers and managers on the effect of anthropogenic change and management responses on floods, the efficacy of current strategies and policies to manage water resources, and the spatial distribution of a watershed's capacity to regulate flooding at a high spatial resolution. / Master of Science

A water-filled geomembrane tube is considered for the purpose of temporary flood protection. With proper design, this tube can be a cheap and efficient breakwater, temporary levee, or cofferdam. This thesis considers a single tube resting on clay and sand foundations. A finite difference program, FLAC, is used in the numerical analyses. The tube is assumed to be infinitely long, and it is modeled two-dimensionally. Beam elements are used to model the tube. The tube is inflated with water. The hydrostatic pressure in the tube is converted to point loads and applied at the beam nodes in the direction perpendicular to the chord connecting two adjacent nodes. Two of FLAC's built-in soil models are used: elastic and Mohr-Coulomb. The Mohr-Coulomb model is used in all the cases except the preliminary analyses, in which the elastic soil model is used. The Mohr-Coulomb soil model is able to model the soil's nonlinear stress-strain and path-dependent deformation behavior. A tube without external water is placed on clay with various shear strengths to study how the clay consistency affects the height and the stresses in the tube. A tube with external water on one side is placed on medium dense sand. A wooden block is placed on the side opposite the floodwater. Three types of block geometry and two sizes are studied. The floodwater level is increased until the system fails. Three failure modes, rolling, sliding, and piping, are studied. The effect of pore pressure on these failure modes is examined. The influence of a filter placed under part of the tube and block is also investigated. The tube's tensile forces, shear forces, moments, and settlements are included. Soil stresses and pore pressures at the soil-tube interfaces are computed. The cross-section of the tube at various external water levels, and the pore pressures in the soil, are calculated. These results are compared with experimental results that were obtained by graduate students in geotechnical engineering at Virginia Tech. / Master of Science

Current U.S. Army Corps of Engineers water resources planning guidance directs the planners to consider all design alternatives with economic efficiency as the primary criterion. Recent criticism of the flood loss reduction planning is directed at the Corps. One criticism is that the traditional design practices of the Corps address only large flood events. The emphasis on large flood events precludes the use of nonstructural methods, whose economically feasible range is at smaller scales. However, the advantage of having nonstructural measures available to federal water resources planners is widely recognized. This study seeks to demonstrate that nonstructural means are at a disadvantage in the Corps planning process. It examines the institutional framework that directs the planning of these projects. Using data from Corps reports, the economically feasible ranges and optimal sizes are determined for selected nonstructural measures through a series of case studies. The resulting optimal sizes are compared to those recommended in the Corps reports. The optimal sizes of the nonstructural alternatives developed for this study are smaller than the recommended levels. In the current budget climate, the implementation of flood loss reduction projects may occur more frequently with the increased use of nonstructura1 measures since they require less investment. / Master of Science

The Diploma thesis on the theme "Assessment of flood control measures to protect the population in selected communities of the South Bohemia region in the catchment area of the river Lužnice" is divided into theoretical part and the research part. The theoretical part is a general whole, which in the sections refers to the relevant legislation of the flood problems, it explains the flood as the concept and everything associated with it. In particular it introduces the readers with flood characteristics of the territory of the Czech Republic and with the characteristics of the catchment area of the river Lužnice. It describes the selected municipalities by its flow, which are the subject of the research. It explains the difference between a natural and an extraordinary flood, describes the historic and contemporary floods and their damage. It deals with the protection from natural disasters, characterizes the activities of the relevant organs of the protection flood. In the context of the protection of the population it defines the summary measures that help to ensure the protection of life and health of the people, property and environment in emergencies, which are warning, evacuation, hide and emergency survival of the population and other measures to ensure the protection of life, health and property. The aim of this work is to evaluate the effectiveness of flood control measures from the perspective of the number of the protected inhabitants on the territory. In order to achieve the goals, it was necessary to make several consecutive steps. On the basis of assessed results it could be returned to the research question, whether the built flood protection measures are effective in relation to the protected values of the life, health, property and the environment. For the fulfillment of the objectives of the work and verification of research questions,it was need to be familiar with the relevant legislation of the subject, then with the implemented measures, flood protection plans of the municipalities including analysis of their substantive and organisational components. After that to perform the qualitative processing of the survey, the respondents of which were the statutory representatives of the municipalities, who are in charge of the flood protection, and other charged people (e.g. crisis management staff, officers of the Department of the environment or Building office, etc.). The found facts served to the description, evaluation, comparison and analysis of the flood control measures in relation to the number of the protected inhabitants within the catchment area of the river Lužnice. In this way the concrete results were obtained and discussed in the comments of this Diploma thesis. The submitted Diploma thesis in its research part assesses the effectiveness of the flood control measures in the framework of the protection of the population in the South Bohemia municipalities - Bechyně, Tábor, Planá nad Lužnicí, Soběslav, Dráchov, Veselí nad Lužnicí by the flow of river Lužnice, that touches the ranked in the river kilometres from 10,6 to 77,3 km lines. The inspiration for the processing of this Diploma thesis there were the consequences of disastrous floods in 2002, 2006 and 2013 in these areas, which have caused enormous damage and even loss of life. Then the personal interest of the author, as a resident of the town Veselí nad Lužnicí and respectively the member of the crisis management of this town. The research question and the methodology of the research were designed to be filled the objectives of this thesis, it means the evaluation of the effectiveness of the flood control measures from the perspective of the number of the protected inhabitants on the territory. The thesis evaluated the current status of flood protection, description, comparison and analysis were made. There were designed some of the other possible measures that would, in my opinion, led to the improvement of flood protection...

At the beginning of my thesis, the risk of floods in the territory of the Czech Republic is generally characterized which is followed by basic legal documents governing flood protection. The characteristics of the territory on which this thesis focuses is presented in the next section, which is describes in detail the administrative district of the municipality with extended powers (MEP) of Týn nad Vltavou, the basic description of its hydrological basin and waterways and, of course, the flood profile of the individual municipalities. The following section explains the term of flood, classification of floods and a detailed description of flood risks within detail the administrative district of the MEP of Týn nad Vltavou emphasizing the risk of formation a special flood. This is followed a list of complex activities and measures aimed at preventing and eliminating the threats to the health, lives and property of the citizens, society and the environment during floods. It also discusses planning in the field of flood protection and the classification of flood plans. Emphasis is placed on the documentation of flood protection of the administrative district of the MEP of Týn nad Vltavou that is associated with the activities of flood protection authorities. The section discusses in detail their activities during floods as well as when there are no floods. The function of flood committee of the MEP Týn nad Vltavou is mentioned detailing the description of activities of its individual members. The objectives of this thesis were aimed at finding out about the level of prepared flood protection documentation processed, analysing the activities of flood protection authorities and examining their knowledge about the issue of flooding. All the objectives were directed to the administrative district of the MEP Týn nad Vltavou and its flood protection authorities. Through a sociological survey among the flood protection authorities of the administrative district of the MEP Týn nad Vltavou that was conducted in the form of an anonymous questionnaire testing their knowledge in the field of flood protection. The results obtained were subjected to statistical evaluation, which, together with graphical representation, is of part of the thesis.

Un análisis de la literatura disponible sobre las inundaciones, en el Estado español, permite sacar dos conclusiones: i) el principal factor desencadenante de desastres es de origen socioeconómico, lo cual se debe a la localización de bienes y servicios en zonas inundables; ii) las inundaciones con grandes consecuencias negativas se concentran principalmente en el área mediterránea, donde además del principal factor desencadenante, se conjugan otros factores relacionados con las características hidroclimáticas de estas zonas (ej. tormentas convectivas de alta intensidad, cuencas pequeñas con abruptas pendientes y amplios valles aluviales, suelos poco profundos con sustratos permeables), donde preponderan inundaciones de tipo relámpago. Actualmente, se tiene al alcance una gran cantidad de bibliografía científica, sumada a herramientas computacionales potentes que facilitan la cuantificación del riesgo, concepto entendido como la probabilidad de que se produzca un evento de inundación y sus posibles consecuencias negativas. A partir de esta definición, la gestión del riesgo de inundaciones puede ser definida como un proceso cíclico dinámico de análisis, valoración y reducción del riesgo. Dentro de los recientes avances metodológicos dados en esta área del conocimiento, hay que destacar que en los últimos años se han venido dando aportes importantes desde diferentes líneas de investigación del Grupo de Investigación de Modelación Hidrológica y Ambiental de la UPV. Sobre estos fundamentos, es posible plantear una metodología idónea para el análisis del riesgo de inundaciones, soportándose en la implementación conjunta de modelos estocásticos de tormentas convectivas, modelación hidrológica distribuida, modelación hidráulica bidimensional, análisis estadístico multivariado y estimación de daños directos tangibles. Los resultados obtenidos con esta variedad de métodos, integrados espacialmente con sistemas de información geográficos, permiten cuantificar el riesgo y cartografiarlo. Con dicha metodología es posible "analizar" el riesgo en situación actual, así como el que se podría generar con la implementación de estrategias de "reducción" de carácter preventivo. Sobre estas hipótesis de partida, el objetivo de esta tesis ha sido el de plantear una metodología de análisis y reducción del riesgo de inundaciones, para ser aplicada a un caso de estudio específico de un sistema fluvial mediterráneo representativo de meso-escala que haya experimentado consecuencias negativas por inundaciones: la Rambla del Poyo (Valencia). Dicha metodología planteada ha sido flexible para posteriormente ser adaptada al análisis de estrategias de reducción del riesgo mediante medidas preventivas del tipo "retención de agua en el territorio", además de permitir un análisis de su efectividad. A partir de la implementación del plan de investigación, se han encontrado dos juegos de conclusiones generales. En primer lugar, respecto a la metodología implementada: i) ésta ha mostrado ser efectiva en cuanto a requerimientos de datos, tiempo computacional y credibilidad de los resultados; ii) el uso acoplado de la modelación estocástica de tormentas con la modelación hidrológica distribuida, ha mostrado tener un gran potencial en la estimación de la frecuencia de avenidas, principalmente por involucrar el análisis físico de los procesos hidrológicos en la cuenca hidrográfica; iii) el análisis hidrodinámico acoplado 1D/2D, ha mostrado ser una herramienta eficaz para el análisis de la extensa llanura inundable del caso de estudio, sin embargo debido a los costes computacionales y económicos su utilidad se ha visto restringida; iv) el levantamiento en campo de datos, sobre los daños producidos por inundaciones históricas en el área de estudio, ha mostrado ser un soporte fiable en la construcción de las funciones calado-daño para la estimación de los daños directos tangibles y su integración en la estimación del riesgo. Por otro lado, respecto a las medidas de "retención de agua en el territorio" analizadas: i) su efectividad sobre la reducción del caudal máximo se ha visto condicionada por varios factores, entre ellos: la variabilidad espacio-temporal de las tormentas, la condición de humedad antecedente del suelo, la magnitud de la avenida, la tipología de medida adoptada en función de su afectación de los procesos hidrológicos (generación o propagación de la escorrentía) y su distribución espacial dentro de la cuenca; ii) en términos generales se ha observado que la efectividad, sobre la reducción del caudal máximo, de las medidas de retención en ladera (reforestación) y de retención en cauces (embalses distribuidos y embalse único equivalente), va disminuyendo a medida que aumenta la magnitud de la avenida; igualmente, para mayores aumentos, relativos al área afectada por dichas medidas, en la capacidad de retención en la cuenca, mayor efectividad ha sido observada; iii) reducciones en la magnitud de eventos con frecuencias altas e inefectividad en bajas, puede traducirse en reducciones significativas del riesgo, es decir, mayor efectividad en la reducción del riesgo. Alternativamente a las medidas de "retención de agua en el territorio" (las cuales sólo afectan la peligrosidad), el análisis de la introducción de medidas preventivas tales como barreras físicas en las puertas de las viviendas (las cuales afectan la susceptibilidad) ha mostrado tener una relativa significancia en la reducción del riesgo; iv) el análisis de la efectividad sobre el riesgo ha brindado una mejor herramienta de análisis que sólo sobre el caudal máximo (o peligrosidad), debido a que se ha podido cuantificar el grado de reducción del riesgo de cada una de las medidas analizadas en la zona inundable. Este resultado puede ser de gran utilidad en una posterior evaluación de alternativas eficientes en el ciclo de gestión del riesgo, como pueden ser las tareas de valoración del riesgo o análisis coste-beneficio. Finalmente, se han presentado algunas recomendaciones y líneas de investigación futuras, las cuales han surgido de los requerimientos no cubiertos en esta tesis doctoral. / Salazar Galán, SA. (2013). Metodología para el análisis y la reducción del riesgo de inundaciones: aplicación en la Rambla del Poyo (Valencia) usando medidas de "retención de agua en el territorio" [Tesis doctoral]. Editorial Universitat Politècnica de València. https://doi.org/10.4995/Thesis/10251/29329

Floods cause widespread damage to property and life in different parts of the world. Hence there is a paramount need to develop effective methods for design flood estimation to alleviate risk associated with these extreme hydrologic events. Methods that are conventionally considered for analysis of floods focus on estimation of continuous frequency relationship between peak flow observed at a location and its corresponding exceedance probability depicting the plausible conditions in the planning horizon. These methods are commonly known as at-site flood frequency analysis (FFA) procedures. The available FFA procedures can be classified as parametric and nonparametric. Parametric methods are based on the assumption that sample (at-site data) is drawn from a population with known probability density function (PDF). Those procedures have uncertainty associated with the choice of PDF and the method for estimation of its parameters. Moreover, parametric methods are ineffective in modeling flood data if multimodality is evident in their PDF. To overcome those artifacts, a few studies attempted using kernel based nonparametric (NP) methods as an alternative to parametric methods. The NP methods are data driven and they can characterize the uncertainty in data without prior assumptions as to the form of the PDF. Conventional kernel methods have shortcomings associated with boundary leakage problem and normal reference rule (considered for estimation of bandwidth), which have implications on flood quantile estimates. To alleviate this problem, focus of NP flood frequency analysis has been on development of new kernel density estimators (kdes). Another issue in FFA is that information on the whole hydrograph (e.g., time to the peak flow, volume of the flood flow and duration of the flood event) is needed, in addition to peak flow for certain applications. An option is to perform frequency analysis on each of the variables independently. However, these variables are not independent, and hence there is a need to perform multivariate analysis to construct multivariate PDFs and use the corresponding cumulative distribution functions (CDFs) to arrive at estimates of characteristics of design flood hydrograph. In this perspective, recent focus of flood frequency analysis studies has been on development of methods to derive joint distributions of flood hydrograph related variables in a nonparametric setting. Further, in real world scenario, it is often necessary to estimate design flood quantiles at target locations that have limited or no data. Regional Flood Frequency analysis (RFFA) procedures have been developed for use in such situations. These procedures involve use of a regionalization procedure for identification of a homogeneous group of watersheds that are similar to watershed of the target site in terms of flood response. Subsequently regional frequency analysis (RFA) is performed, wherein the information pooled from the group (region) forms basis for frequency analysis to construct a CDF (growth curve) that is subsequently used to arrive at quantile estimates at the target site. Though there are various procedures for RFFA, they are largely confined to only univariate framework considering a parametric approach as the basis to arrive at required quantile estimates. Motivated by these findings, this thesis concerns development of a linear diffusion process based adaptive kernel density estimator (D-kde) based methodologies for at-site as well as regional FFA in univariate as well as bivariate settings. The D-kde alleviates boundary leakage problem and also avoids normal reference rule while estimating optimal bandwidth by using Botev-Grotowski-Kroese estimator (BGKE). Potential of the proposed methodologies in both univariate and bivariate settings is demonstrated by application to synthetic data sets of various sizes drawn from known unimodal and bimodal parametric populations, and to real world data sets from India, USA, United Kingdom and Canada. In the context of at-site univariate FFA (considering peak flows), the performance of D- kde was found to be better when compared to four parametric distribution based methods (Generalized extreme value, Generalized logistic, Generalized Pareto, Generalized Normal), thirty-two ‘kde and bandwidth estimator’ combinations that resulted from application of four commonly used kernels in conjunction with eight bandwidth estimators, and a local polynomial–based estimator. In the context of at-site bivariate FFA considering ‘peakflow-flood volume’ and ‘flood duration-flood volume’ bivariate combinations, the proposed D-kde based methodology was shown to be effective when compared to commonly used seven copulas (Gumbel-Hougaard, Frank, Clayton, Joe, Normal, Plackett, and student’s-T copulas) and Gaussian kernel in conjunction with conventional as well as BGKE bandwidth estimators. Sensitivity analysis indicated that selection of optimum number of bins is critical in implementing D-kde in bivariate setting. In the context of univariate regional flood frequency analysis (RFFA) considering peak flows, a methodology based on D-kde and Index-flood methods is proposed and its performance is shown to be better when compared to that of widely used L-moment and Index-flood based method (‘regional L-moment algorithm’) through Monte-Carlo simulation experiments on homogeneous as well as heterogeneous synthetic regions, and through leave-one-out cross validation experiment performed on data sets pertaining to 54 watersheds in Godavari river basin, India. In this context, four homogeneous groups of watersheds are delineated in Godavari river basin using kernel principal component analysis (KPCA) in conjunction with Fuzzy c-means cluster analysis in L-moment framework, as an improvement over heterogeneous regions in the area (river basin) that are currently being considered by Central Water Commission, India. In the context of bivariate RFFA two methods are proposed. They involve forming site-specific pooling groups (regions) based on either L-moment based bivariate homogeneity test (R-BHT) or bivariate Kolmogorov-Smirnov test (R-BKS), and RFA based on D-kde. Their performance is assessed by application to data sets pertaining to stations in the conterminous United States. Results indicate that the R-BKS method is better than R-BHT in predicting quantiles of bivariate flood characteristics at ungauged sites, although the size of pooling groups formed using R-BKS is, in general, smaller than size of those formed using R-BHT. In general, the performance of the methods is found to improve with increase in size of pooling groups. Overall the results indicate that the D-kde always yields bona fide PDF (and CDF) in the context of univariate as well as bivariate flood frequency analysis, as probability density is nonnegative for all data points and integrates to unity for the valid range of the data. The performance of D-kde based at-site as well as regional FFA methodologies is found to be effective in univariate as well as bivariate settings, irrespective of the nature of population and sample size. A primary assumption underlying conventional FFA procedures has been that the time series of peak flow is stationarity (temporally homogeneous). However, recent studies carried out in various parts of the World question the assumption of flood stationarity. In this perspective, Time Varying Gaussian Copula (TVGC) based methodology is proposed in the thesis for flood frequency analysis in bivariate setting, which allows relaxing the assumption of stationarity in flood related variables. It is shown to be effective than seven commonly used stationary copulas through Monte-Carlo simulation experiments and by application to data sets pertaining to stations in the conterminous United States for which null hypothesis that peak flow data were non-stationary cannot be rejected.

Recentes catástrofes provocadas por eventos hidrológicos extremos ocorridos nas cidades brasileiras revelaram a fragilidade das atuais políticas empregadas no tratamento do problema das inundações. Freqüentemente, faltam recursos mesmo para as ações emergenciais, e as ações estruturais aplicadas muitas vezes consistem de medidas pontuais e paliativas que não promovem soluções definitivas no âmbito de bacia hidrográfica. O tratamento do problema de inundações de maneira orientada ao risco, em lugar da tradicional abordagem orientada a evento, é uma alternativa que propicia soluções mais eficientes e sustentáveis. A gestão do risco de desastres naturais compreende três níveis: antes, durante e após o evento extremo, com base em ações que visam à redução do risco por meio de suas três componentes: ameaça, vulnerabilidade e exposição. No contexto do desenvolvimento e fortalecimento econômico do Brasil, os seguros para desastres naturais têm papel importante como agentes de transferência do risco que possibilitam a recuperação econômica das áreas atingidas. Vencido o entrave inicial à implantação de seguros deste tipo no Brasil, que foi a abertura, em 2007, ao mercado ressegurador internacional, o desafio que se apresenta atualmente é o desenvolvimento de metodologias que possibilitem relacionar a magnitude do evento natural extremo com o prejuízo monetário correspondente e o prêmio de seguro que possibilite ressarcir as perdas contabilizadas, considerando cenários de longo prazo. O modelo de seguros proposto neste trabalho é baseado no princípio de seguro indexado, em que o pagamento de indenizações é vinculado a uma variável climática, no caso, a vazão máxima de cheia. Foram utilizadas ferramentas de modelagem e simulação hidráulico-hidrológica para gerar mapas de risco de inundação e quantificar os prejuízos correspondentes às cheias de diferentes probabilidades de ocorrência. Em seguida, foi simulado um modelo econômico de seguros para obter o prêmio ótimo capaz de ressarcir os prejuízos estimados, considerando diferentes cenários de longo prazo. Um estudo de caso ilustra a aplicação do método em uma bacia hidrográfica caracterizada por problemas recorrentes de inundação, dado o processo de expansão urbana que nela vem ocorrendo. Foram avaliadas faixas de cobertura em função dos períodos de retorno das cheias correspondentes. Os resultados mostraram que a metodologia é adequada à análise do comportamento do fundo de seguros. Resseguros podem ser requeridos para o tratamento de eventos de períodos de retorno muito extremos. / Recent disasters caused by extreme hydrological events, occurred in Brazilian cities, have exposed how fragile the current policies are to manage such situation. Often, a lack of resources is observed even for emergency actions, while structural actions commonly consist of palliative and punctual measures that do not promote real solutions considering the watershed sphere. To face the problem based on a risk-oriented approach instead of the traditional event-oriented approach represents an alternative that provides more efficient and sustainable solutions. Disaster risk management comprehends three time-oriented phases: before, during and after the extreme event, each phase focusing on the three risk\'s components: hazard, vulnerability and exposition. As Brazil\'s economy grows stronger and more stable, natural disaster insurance plays an important role as a risk transfer mechanism, promoting economic resilience in damaged areas. After the opening of the reinsurance\'s market in 2007, Brazil\'s challenge is to develop methodologies relating extreme events hazard with its corresponding damage and an insurance premium, in a way that the losses can be refunded in long term sceneries. The insurance model proposed in this work is based on the indexed insurance, where the refunds are linked to a weather variable - the maximum discharge. Hydrologic and hydraulic simulations were developed in order to generate risk maps and to quantify the damage related to floods with different return periods. Afterwards, a flood insurance model was simulated in order to obtain the optimal insurance premium sufficient to refund the expected damage for long term sceneries. A case study illustrates the method in a watershed where flood events are frequent due to urban occupation. The insurance coverage associated to each flood return period was examined and the results have shown that the methodology is suitable for the analysis of the flood insurance\'s behavior. Reinsurance may be required to deal with extreme events with high return periods.