The IHD UNESCO Series Floods in a changing climate is an important reference for water managers and water-science professionals dealing with floods. The renewed activity in all aspects of flood management in Canada resulting from the Alberta and Ontario floods of 2013 will ensure interest in the series among Canadian practitioners.
The Inundation modelling research monograph reviewed here is one of four titles in the Series Floods in a changing climate published by IHP (UNESCO) under the editorial leadership of Dr. Solodoban Simonovic of Western University. The other three monographs cover Extreme precipitation, Hydrologic modeling and Risk management. Taken together, the four make an important contribution to the understanding of the present state of knowledge of flood hydrology and the analytic techniques available to improve flood management and thus minimize flood damages.
Dr. Di Baldassare of the University of Bologna is the principal author of Inundation modeling and of eight of the 11 chapters. The other three chapters were contributed by Dr. Brandimarte (“Theory of steady flow”), by Dr. Popescu (“Theory of unsteady flow”) and by Dr. Bates, Dr. Fewtrell and Dr. Neal (“Urban flood modeling”). All of the authors are from Europe and the examples used are from Italy and the United Kingdom.
The purpose of the monograph, as stated by Professor Szollosi-Nagy in the Foreword, is to present “a systematic treatment of flood inundation modelling ranging from the theoretical backgrounds of unsteady flow all the way up to the making and interpreting of floodplain mapping” (xi). This compact, well-referenced monograph provides an excellent exposition of the two important advances in flood inundation modelling of the past two decades – the abundance of detailed spatial data now available in a geographic information system (GIS) environment, and the capability of two- and three-dimensional unsteady-state modelling to apply this data to represent the spatial and temporal patterns of inundation during a flood period.
Part I of the monograph presents the theoretical background that supports the equations for steady and unsteady flow that are used in flood-inundation modelling. Most readers of the monograph will pass quickly through this material to get to the main content of the monograph – the methods available for inundation modelling and examples of their application. The theoretical background presented in Part I is clear and concise but for experts in the field the material is already familiar, and for the non-technically trained it is much too dense and abbreviated to substitute for the several graduate courses needed to cover the material in depth.
The four chapters of Part II: Methods present data sources, model building, model evaluation and model outputs. In these chapters, Dr. Baldassare makes good use of his own research and project work to provide a comprehensive review of the techniques now available and in use in inundation modelling. The presentation is fully referenced with respect to the published literature through 2010. Most of the references are to European authors, but there is adequate representation of United States publications from the Hydrologic Engineering Center of the US Army Corps of Engineers and elsewhere. There are no Canadian contributions cited on inundation modelling.
A particular contribution of these chapters, as noted by Professor Montanari in his contribution to the Foreword, is the emphasis on the importance of the estimation of uncertainty in decision-making based on modelling. The inclusion of uncertainty in boundary conditions within this topic is especially important and welcomed. The chapters do not deal with the estimation or prediction of the flowrate hydrograph entering the reach under analysis for inundation as this is covered by Volume 2 in the IHP series, Hydrologic modelling.
Part III: Applications provides examples of inundation modelling applied to the specific cases of flooding of urban areas, assessment of changes in flood propagation caused by human activities and changes in the relationship between flood level and discharge over time. Part III concludes with an evaluation of floodplain management strategies as informed by the outcomes of inundation modelling.
As noted earlier, the examples in Part III are taken from European studies in Italy and the United Kingdom. This is no limitation as the techniques employed are transferrable to any location. Inclusion of analyses that deal with effects of anthropogenic change on inundation dynamics, and with temporal variation in the stage-discharge relationship, as well as the truly three-dimensional representation of inundation within the analysis, provide very good evidence of the power of analysis now available in flood inundation modelling.
This monograph provides important guidance to practitioners of inundation modelling, managers of flood management studies, and decision-makers choosing flood-risk mitigation policies. It describes the state-of-the-art techniques that can and should be used for inundation modelling and illustrates the benefits that result from advanced modelling in terms of improved analysis to support decision-making.
An additional contribution of this monograph, and of the entire series, is to strengthen the decision-making framework of integrated flood management by careful inclusion, beyond the important role of hydraulic and hydrologic sciences, of references to the contributions of environmental, social and economic expertise in the selection of floodplain management strategies.
Adjunct Professor, Water Resources Engineering University of Guelph
© 2014 Canadian Water Resources Association
http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/07011784.2014.942113