A risk-based network analysis of distributed in-stream leaky barriers for flood risk management

With growing support for nature-based solutions to reduce flooding by local communities, government authorities and international organisations, it is still important to improve how we assess risk reduction.

The development of a simplified 1D network-based model of a catchment basin allows rapid assessment of the whole-system performance of leaky barriers in stream networks. This paper, published in the Natural Hazards and Earth System Sciences journal, considers utilisation, synchronisation effects and cascade failure of leaky barriers and makes recommendations for the implementation of nature-based measures.

The paper is available to read here.

Further background to the research is available here and source code for the model is available on our GitLab website.

Citation

Hankin, B., Hewitt, I., Sander, G., Danieli, F., Formetta, G., Kamilova, A., Kretzschmar, A., Kiradjiev, K., Wong, C., Pegler, S., and Lamb, R.: A risk-based network analysis of distributed in-stream leaky barriers for flood risk management, Nat. Hazards Earth Syst. Sci., 20, 2567–2584, https://doi.org/10.5194/nhess-20-2567-2020, 2020

Funding and acknowledgements

This work was supported by the NERC research project Q-NFM (grant NE/R004722/1), the EPSRC Maths Foresees network 2017 Environmental Modelling in Industry Study Group and the JBA Trust project W17-6962.