Examples of flood mapping

In this article, you will be presented to some examples of how flood mapping is being used in England, Germany and Sweden.

England

For England, the government has an online service visualizing flood risks for the entire country. This is available at https://check-long-term-flood-risk.service.gov.uk/map and an example of the available data is shown below. The service shows fluvial and pluvial flooding. For pluvial flooding, it shows both the risks of water depths and the risks of flooding velocity.

https://check-long-term-flood-risk.service.gov.uk/map

Separate services are also available for:

Scotland: https://map.sepa.org.uk/floodmaps

Wales: https://naturalresources.wales/flooding/check-your-flood-risk-by-postcode/

Northern Ireland: https://www.nidirect.gov.uk/articles/check-risk-flooding-your-area.

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Germany

A similar service is available in Germany. However, this service is operated by insurance companies rather than the government. Because of this, the service is simpler and more focused on estimating the (potential) financial damages of flooding and other natural hazards. Nonetheless, it can be a good starting point to investigating what measures need to be taken against flooding.

https://www.dieversicherer.de/service/naturgefahren/versicherer/60122?query=&plz=20095&ort=Hamburg&landkreis=02000&bezirk=020&bundesland=02&ortsteil=Hamburg-Altstadt

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From left to right, this shows an indication of:

1. The number of damages to buildings in the region last year.
2. The highest damage caused to a single-family home in the region by intense rainfall (in Euros).
3. The highest damage caused to a single-family home in the region by storm or hail (in Euros).
4. The risk of flooding from rivers.

Stockholm, Sweden

In many places it is primarily local or regional authorities that are responsible for managing severe rainfalls, so sometimes flood mapping is carried out at a smaller scale. The advantage of this method is that it allows the use of more detailed models and datasets for the flood mapping. One such example is the flood maps available from the Environmental data portal from the city of Stockholm. In the example below you can see flooding depths for a 100-year return interval, 6-hour duration rainfall event. It is clear that, even close to open water that sewers can discharge to, there can be significant areas experiencing flooding.

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