S ix years after the catastrophic failure of levees and other flood control structures during Hurricane Katrina, New Orleans continues to face the challenge of how to make the city more resilient and less vulnerable to future flood damage from the surge of water that can inundate cities and towns hit by major hurricanes. Past experience in New Orleans and other places has clearly shown that “st...

Flood risk can be reduced by means of flood forecasting, warning and response systems (FFWRS). These systems include a forecasting subsystem which is imperfect, meaning that inherent uncertainties in hydrological forecasts may result in false alarms and missed events. This forecasting uncertainty decreases the potential reduction of flood risk, but is seldom accounted for in estimates of the be...

An understanding of flood impact in terms of sustainability is vital for long-term disaster risk reduction. This paper utilizes two important concepts: conventional insurance related flood risk for short-term damage by specific flood events, and long-term flood impact on sustainability. The Insurance Related Flood Risk index, IRFR, is defined as the product of the Flood Hazard Index (FHI) and V...

Hurricane Sandy caused extensive physical and economic damage; the long-term mental health consequences are unknown. Flooding is a central component of hurricane exposure, influencing mental health through multiple pathways that unfold over months after flooding recedes. Here we assess the concordance in self-reported and Federal Emergency Management (FEMA) flood exposure after Hurricane Sandy ...

The watershed (DAS) Deli is one of the priority watersheds in the Medium Term Development Plan in 2010-2014 according to the Ministry of Forestry decree (SK 328/Menhut-II/2009), Indonesia. DAS is a complex ecological system in which there is a dynamic equilibrium between the incoming material energy (input) and the material out (output). Naturally, the change in input and output balance is slow...