Validation in Flood Risk Modelling

Validation in Flood Risk Modelling

Chairs:
Karin de Bruijn (Deltares),
Laurens Bouwer (Deltares),
Daniela Molinari (Politecnico di Milano)

Validation is a key topic in flood risk analysis, as flood risk assessments are presently characterised by significant uncertainty. Since large investments are made based on flood risk estimates and maps, decision makers must have a sense of the accuracy of the risk estimation outcomes.

This session at Floodrisk 2016 will provide an opportunity to discuss the key challenges in flood hazard estimation and risk assessment, for fluvial, pluvial, coastal, and flash floods; to report on new results in flood risk model validation; to discuss with policy makers and private sector; and to set priorities for the research agenda on flood risk validation.

In this session, we will not only discuss the need and options for validation, but also main gaps and research needs, including:

1. Collection, standardisation and sharing of high quality data for model validation (i.e. hazard, failure, and impact models);
2. Identifying benchmarks for flood risk modelling and validation;
3. Validating and testing impact models, including damage models;
4. Exploring new methods including multiple explanatory variables, in order to reduce model uncertainty;
5. Integration of results with expert opinion when data are scarce or lacking.

From the session we will identify topics and actions for a “priority” research agenda on flood risk model validation. This agenda will be published and distributed amongst key-stakeholders.

The session will include:

• Introduction on flood risk model validation by Karin de Bruijn (Deltares)
• Importance of and challenges on validation from the view of science, policy and the insurance industry: Keynote speakers are: Bruno Merz (GFZ Potsdam), Christabel Mitchell (Environment Agency), Guillermo Franco (Guy Carpenter).
• Vote with your feet: In an interactive way participants are asked to take position on statements, and to discuss with each other.
• Discussion and way forward

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Co-ordinators of
FLOODrisk 2016 include: