Flood Risk Assessment in Canada: Issues of Purpose, Scale, and Topography. Elshorbagy, A., Bharath, R., & Ahmed, M. In 2018.
Flood Risk Assessment in Canada: Issues of Purpose, Scale, and Topography [pdf]Paper  abstract   bibtex   
Flood risk assessment in Canada is a top priority in both science and policy agendas. Fluvial and pluvial flood assessment, which is the focus of this paper, requires reliable flood mapping in Canada, which in turn raises issues regarding purpose, scale, and topography. Large scale planning of developments, landuse change and zoning, or specific engineering design are examples of different purposes that require different scales for flood mapping. The different topographies across Canada also dictates different approaches for flood modeling and mapping. A national flood risk assessment in Canada, using fine resolution global and national datasets, is presented. A national flood hazard map is prepared using a 20m resolution DEM to identify, for each pixel, the distance from and the height above the nearest river. An exposure map is prepared by using landuse and the satellite-based nightlight data to determine the value of each pixel. A national economic flood risk map is then produced, and subsequently overlaid with population density information to produce a socioeconomic flood risk map for Canada. At local scale, where more detailed flood hazard information is needed, hydraulic models are developed to better map the flood extent that corresponds to specific flood quantiles. A probabilistic flood hazard map (PFHM) for the Qu’Appelle River reach is produced by perturbing input and model parameters within expected ranges of uncertainties using a combined 1D/2D HEC-RAS as a hydrodynamic model.

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