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...

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

Shire of Murray has concerns regarding the negative impact that a 100 year flood could have on existing structures built before 1997. The increase cost in construction due to landfill has an adverse effect on development in Pinjarra. Feasibility of constructing a diversion channel at upstream of Murray River to attenuate the flood level from 1 in 100 year ARI to 1 in 50 year ARI, was investigated by Kiong (2003). The Murray River Water Surface Profile along three kilometres south of Greenlands Road was modelled. Flood damages on each flood occurrence were assessed and Average Annual Damage (AAD) was calculated. The AAD is used to estimate the monetary benefit against the construction cost of the diversion channel. Groundwater along Greenlands and Fauntleroy Drains was also modelled to determine the viable depth of the designed channel, as well as the analysis of backwater. The proposed channel is designed at different scenarios (invert level at breakout point, culvert or causeway design, and diversion channel variations). The benefit cost ratio of the proposed diversion channel is calculated. Other mitigation options are suggested including detention basins for structural measure, or building a new flood-proof township for non-structural measure.

Many of the anticipated increased occurances of natural hazards are not only a consequence of climate change, but rather of rapid and widespread land cover change and the subsequent loss of the buffering capacity provided by healthy ecosystems against natural hazards. Unplanned and unmanaged developments in informal settlements limit government’s ability to mitigate and manage, pointing towards natural resources as being integral for vulnerable communities in developing countries to cope with and mitigate flood disasters. There is a lack of understanding on how natural resources contribute to resilience of vulnerable populations in the Eastern Cape and how they are impacted by these populations before, during and after a flood shock. There also exists a gap in knowledge on how natural resources can mitigate the physical impacts of flooding in South Africa, more so in the Eastern Cape province. Using household questionnaires and GIS techniques, the strategies that households used to recover from the October 2012-February 2013 flood shocks were investigated in informal settlements of three towns (Grahamstown, Port Alfred and Port St Johns). Within the vulnerability paradigm and the sustainable livelihood framework, the study also quantified and evaluated the relative contribution of natural resources to recovery strategies, and lastly, the study investigated how patterns of land use, state of natural vegetation and household topographical location exacerbated or diminished the physical impacts of flooding. This study found that natural resources contributed up to 70 percent to recovery of households from the flood shock, most of this being to reconstruction of housing structures after the flood, less so to economic recovery. It was also found that at a settlement scale the buffering effect of vegetation, although variable amongst settlements, was significant. Settlements that were dominated by dense bush and small trees experienced up to 46 percent less impacts on their property than those surrounded by bare gravel and impervious roofs with degraded environments. The main findings of the research show that natural resources reduce the vulnerability of households in informal settlements to flooding in two significant ways; by physically mitigating against damage to shelters and by also providing an emergency-net function that substitutes financial capital in households. Their inclusion in disaster management has the potential to encourage the sustainable livelihoods of the urban poor in the Eastern Cape

With the advancement of technology and the development of more sophisticated remote sensing sensor systems, the use of satellite imagery has opened up various fields of exploration and application. There has been an increased interest in analysis of multi-temporal satellite image in the past few years because of the wide variety of possible applications of in both short-term and long-term image analysis. The type of changes that might be of interest can range from short-term phenomena such as flood assessment and crop growth stage, to long-term phenomena such as urban fringe development. This thesis studies flood assessment and land cover mapping of satellite images, and proposes nature inspired algorithms that can be easily implemented in realistic scenarios. Disaster monitoring using space technology is one of the key areas of research with vast potential; particularly flood based disasters are more challenging. Every year floods occur in many regions of the world and cause great losses. In order to monitor and assess such situations, decision-makers need accurate near real-time knowledge of the field situation. How to provide actual information to decision-makers for effective flood monitoring and mitigation is an important task, from the point of view of public welfare. Over-estimation of the flooded area leads to over-compensation to people, while under-estimation results in production loss and negative impacts on the population. Hence it is essential to assess the flood damage accurately, both in qualitative and quantitative terms. In such situations, land cover maps play a very critical role. Updating land cover maps is a time consuming and costlier operation when it is performed using traditional or manual methods. Hence, there is a need to find solutions for such problem through automation. Design of automatic systems dedicated to satellite image processing which involves change detection to discriminate areas of land cover change between imaging dates. The system integrates the spectral and spatial information with the techniques of image registration and pattern classification using nature inspired techniques. In the literature, various works have been carried out for solving the problem of image registration and pattern classification using conventional methods. Many researchers have proved, for different situations, that nature inspired techniques are promising in comparison with that of conventional methods. The main advantage of nature inspired technique over any other conventional methods is its stochastic nature, which converges to optimal solution for any dynamic variation in a given satellite image. Results are given in such terms as to delineate change in multi-date imagery using change-versus-no-change information to guide multi-date data analysis. The main objective of this study is to analyze spatio-temporal satellite data to bring out significant changes in the land cover map through automated image processing methods. In this study, for satellite image analysis of flood assessment and land cover mapping, the study areas and images considered are: Multi-temporal MODerate-resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) image around Krishna river basin in Andhra Pradesh India; Linear Imaging Self Scanning Sensor III (LISS III)and Synthetic Aperture Radar(SAR)image around Kosi river basin in Bihar, India; Landsat7thematicmapperimage from the southern part of India; Quick-Bird image of the central Bangalore, India; Hyperion image around Meerut city, Uttar Pradesh, India; and Indian pines hyperspectral image. In order to develop a flood assessment framework for this study, a database was created from remotely sensed images (optical and/or Synthetic Aperture Radar data), covering a period of time. The nature inspired techniques are used to find solutions to problems of image registration and pattern classification of a multi-sensor and multi-temporal satellite image. Results obtained are used to localize and estimate accurately the flood extent and also to identify the type of the inundated area based on land cover mapping. The nature inspired techniques used for satellite image processing are Artificial Neural Network (ANN), Genetic Algorithm (GA),Particle Swarm Optimization (PSO), Firefly Algorithm(FA),Glowworm Swarm Optimization(GSO)and Artificial Immune System (AIS). From the obtained results, we evaluate the performance of the methods used for image registration and pattern classification to compare the accuracy of satellite image processing using nature inspired techniques. In summary, the main contributions of this thesis include (a) analysis of flood assessment and land cover mapping using satellite images and (b) efficient image registration and pattern classification using nature inspired algorithms, which are more popular than conventional optimization methods because of their simplicity, parallelism and convergence of the population towards the optimal solution in a given search space.

MURP / Department of Urban and Regional Planning / Disaster is posing serious threats to both human lives, infrastructure and the environment at large. Greater Tzaneen Municipality (GTM) is one of the many municipalities that suffer from flood related disasters. Lack of integration between Disaster Risk Reduction (DRR) and spatial planning has compounded the disaster risk situation in the municipality. This study sought to investigate the prospects of integrating spatial planning with disaster risk reduction in flood prone areas of GTM. The study is guided by three research objectives. First, the study sought to analyse spatial planning attributes that can be valorised for DRR in flood prone areas; Secondly, it sought to analyse spatial planning factors that define vulnerability attributes of households occupying flood prone areas. Finally, the study sought to perform a cluster analytical creation of a typology of households whose resilience to flooding could be enhanced through spatial planning. Twenty-five flood prone areas were analysed on the basis of four main flood vulnerability attributes. In order to identify such vulnerability attributes, the study borrowed critical insights from literatures on flood vulnerability, spatial planning and DRR. Such a critical review of literature was complemented by the use of pattern matching as a qualitative research instrument. Quantitative that was gathered using a structured observation checklist. Quantitative data generated was first subjected to various statistical tests that included Normality and Reliability Tests. Common measures of Normality test used included measures of skewness, kurtosis and the use of Normal Q-Q plots. To assess flood vulnerability, Hierarchical Cluster Analysis (HCA) was used. HCA was used to identify clusters of flood prone areas which had common characteristics in terms of the four main study constructs proposed by the study which included the physical/engineering, socio-economic, ecological/natural and political or governance conditions characterizing each area. HCA was then used to identify main clusters exhibiting similar characteristics and the associated level of vulnerability of such of communities occupying such clusters. Study results revealed 2 main clusters of flood prone areas whose differences lay in interactions that existed between the physical/engineering, socio-economic, ecological/natural and political or governance conditions characterizing each area. Such clusters depicted 2 levels of vulnerability that is high, and moderate. A number of opportunities and constraints were generated using the SWOT matrix strategy with the main results showing that spatial planning elements characterizing flood prone areas could be transformed into critical urban risk management options for DRR. This is because a spatial planning elements were found to have a direct influences on critical factors of DRR such as location of activities. The study concluded by recommending a number of spatial planning strategies that can be vaporized for DRR. Such strategies are systematically aligned to the unique vulnerability context conditions associated with the two flood vulnerability solution arrived at using HCA. / NRF