How mathematics can help manage flood risk

Natural flood management: how mathematics can help manage the risks.

We are pleased to see a report just out about how we supported a mathematical challenge at an environmental modelling study day organised by the “Maths Foresees” network.  Maths Foresees was funded by the UK Engineering & Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC) Environmental Change Network and led by Professor Onno Bokhove from the School of Mathematics at Leeds University.  Over a four-day workshop a group of academic mathematicians, engineers and environmental scientists worked on our challenge, which was to understand more about where natural flood management features called leaky dams should be placed in a river catchment for best effect.

By developing and applying a new, fast network model, the workshop group identified some important patterns of barrier failure, and some useful pointers to help groups wanting to install these types of features.

You can read an article about this research in Mathematics Matters.  A more detailed technical discussion of the work has been published for discussion in the journal Natural Hazards and Earth System Science (NHESS) and source code for the model is available on our GitLab website.

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