New Hazard Categorisation and Shallow Overland Flows

The latest update to ARR (2016) has provided new guidance for defining flood hazard categories in a floodplain.  The Floodplain Development Manual approach of defining High, Medium and Low hazard has been replaced with six categories, H1 to H6, which define various hazard levels for a person or property exposed to floodwaters.  The new hazard categorisation is being used by several Councils in NSW in the latest flood studies.

However, the new categorisation is difficult to implement for shallow overland flows and may overestimate the hazard, in particular if the flow velocity criteria is applied.  Careful consideration is warranted for use in shallow overland flows.

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HydroStorm Presentation at Floodplain Conference in Newcastle

Habib Rehman from HydroStorm Consulting presented a paper on Hydraulic Categorisation of floodplains in the recently held FMA conference in Newcastle (2017).  The paper highlighted the deficiencies in the current industry practice of hydraulic categorisation of floodplains and somewhat arbitrary nature of some of the criteria used in the industry.  Possible solutions were highlighted.

Further investigations on this issue are currently underway and will be presented in a future conference.

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