CASE STUDY

Project Summary
Organization
Portuguese Environment Agency
OpenFlows™ FLOOD™ Helped Quantify the Most Criti-
Location cal Flood-prone Areas in Portugal
Portugal
22 Critical Areas Identified, Promoting More Effective Risk Mitigation and Resilience Actions
Project Objectives
• To provide flood inundation and
flood risk maps for a Portuguese
territory and to properly quantify
inundation probabilities and Flooding and Inundations in Portugal: of flood risks. This directive was transposed into national
associated risks for the existing Past and Present laws, establishing a national framework for the assessment
and future infrastructures, human River flooding affects more people worldwide than any other and management of flood risks, with the aim of reducing the
health, economic activities, and natural hazard, with an estimated global annual average harmful consequences associated with this phenomenon for
the environment. loss of USD 104 billion.1 Such damages are expected to health (including human losses), the environment, cultural
• To support the creation of the increase as a result of continued economic growth and heritage, infrastructure, and economic activities.
Inundation Risk Management climate change.2, 3
Plans, including the definition of In Portugal, the Portuguese Environmental Agency (APA),
the necessary actions to reduce Severe rainfall conditions that lead to floods are associated which is the National Authority for Water, is responsible for
exposure to those flood events. with atmospheric instability which, in mainland Portugal, flood management at a national level, as well as adopting
Products Used usually occurs from autumn to spring. However, the climatic coordination measures in the face of floods. Additionally,
OpenFlows™ FLOOD™ change is precipitating the river flooding events in Europe, the APA applies measures to create alert systems to protect
particularly in western Europe, according to a study published people and assets. The APA is also the main national
in Science.4 Constant modifications in soil use (including entity responsible for the effective implementation of the
deforestation and the urbanization of flood zones) can also European directive in Portugal. The implementation took
Fast Facts increase the impacts from flooding. place as a result of the elaboration and application of flood
• Twenty-two critical zones risk management plans, which was only possible after the
were identified. In mainland Portugal, flood events occur in many different
mapping of inundation zones and flood risks. OpenFlows
• Three different scenarios (20, 100, zones. Yet, the most significant events occur in the
FLOOD was the software used as the integrated modeling
1,000 years of return periods) are hydrographic basins of large and medium-sized rivers. The
capability to estimate the flood characteristics and the
considered, and using OpenFlows Tagus, Douro, and Sado rivers have a long history of floods,
FLOOD integrated flood modeling associated inundated maps.
frequently reported in the media. Other river basins are
to generate multiple inundation
regularized through reservoirs with the capacity to laminate or
maps. Used Data and Considered Scenarios and
to fit the volumes of the floods that are attenuating the flow. Model Engine
• Modeled scenarios were used
to obtain flood risk maps split The hydrological regime of small watercourses in Portugal is The modeling approach used to delineate the inundated areas
in seven Flood Risk usually torrential. During part of the year, the flow is null (or depends on the baseline information and on the specificities
Management Plans covering
almost null) and years pass by without the beds overflowing. of each region. The estimation of flood inundated zones is
the Portuguese mainland.
In contrast, in the case of intense precipitation, surface runoff contingent upon the selection of the flood peak flows for
• The completed model allowed
reaches a high velocity, with the specific flow rates of the the different return periods being studied. In the eight areas
us to project customized actions
to reduce the risk levels and to centenary floods being very high. with default flows provided by the APA, the flood peak flows
increase societal resilience. provided were considered directly.
The Legal and Institutional Context
ROI In the aftermath of the damaging floods in Central Europe
In the 10 areas where the watershed does not show
• Model-based decision-making for significant regularization and/or does not have hydrometric
between 1998 and 2004, the European Union initiated a
flood risk management increased records near the flood zone, hydrological modeling has been
effectiveness and reliability.
process of studying the phenomenon, as well as developed
developed to estimate flood peak flows. For this, the MOHID
mitigation and adaptation procedures to reduce Europe’s
Land model, provided by OpenFlows FLOOD, was used. In
vulnerabilities in the event of floods. By creating these
the four remaining zones, the peak flows were obtained by
procedures, the European Union sought to reduce harmful
analyzing the existing hydrometric records.
consequences. As a result, the European Commission
developed a new strategy that led to the publication of a The determination of the inundated zones was obtained
directive (2007/60/EC) on the assessment and management through the hydraulic modeling of the superficial runoff.
OpenFlows This determination enables the flood flow characteristics to scenarios. Although some of these marks did not specifically
be estimated. Hazard mapping was also obtained, integrating refer to the instant, or the associated flow, this qualitative
FLOOD was the maximum depth and associated velocity. analysis allowed the team to make a positive comparison
between the modeled and measured water heights, enabling
software used For all the zones to be modeled, two-dimensional models
them to validate the models.
were implemented, using MOHID Land (for the inland waters)
as the integrated and MOHID Water (applied to estuarine zones). These 2D
The Bottom Line: Quantified Risks Promote
models are based on the equation of conservation of mass
modeling capability Suitable Actions and Prioritization
and conservation of momentum in two horizontal directions.
The generated inundation maps allowed for the development
With these models, the bed is discretized with high-resolution
to estimate the flood of a realistic risk assessment for the areas of study, resulting
finite element meshes, determining the components of the
in the same number of flood risk maps. The flood risk
characteristics flow velocity in the horizontal plane and considering the
respective average value according to the vertical. quantification integrated the hazard mapping, which was
and the associated modeled from inundation maps and the exposure obtained
At each study site, the various available topographic data from the consequence mapping.
inundated maps. sources were collected and integrated (including 0.5-meter
resolution from LIDAR in some areas). Also, interpolation The quantified risk maps for all those critical areas provided
methods were used to describe the flood plains with valuable instruments to project suitable actions capable of
the greatest detail possible. Based on the topographic preventing, protecting, and mitigating the potential effects
Find out about Bentley
data available and the needs for each specific zone, the derived from future flood events in the next 20 years. All
at: www.bentley.com
computational meshes adopted varied between 2 meters and these actions were later included in the different Inundation
Contact Bentley
40 meters, with the most frequent resolution being 10x10 Risk Management Plans developed by the APA as an
1-800-BENTLEY (1-800-236-8539)
Outside the US +1 610-458-5000 meters. The number of computational points for the different important management instrument. The identification of
Global Office Listings grid meshes varied between 101,500 and 1,402,800. All the the most critical areas and infrastructures allowed them to
www.bentley.com/contact data processing was done inside OpenFlows FLOOD. efficiently prioritize the implementation of specific actions,
which is particularly relevant when resources are scarce.
Regarding the boundary conditions, a schematic variable
hydrograph was imposed in the river side to represent the Inundation maps and flood risk maps have been produced
flood rise as a function of different flows and velocities. In the for all these places and are now public on the environmental
critical areas under the tidal influence, the imposed sea level agencies website: https://sniamb.apambiente.pt/content/
considered was the average height from two consecutive inundações-diretiva-200760ce-portugal-continental.
spring tides; and in the estuarine zones, an overelevation
(representing the storm surge from the atmospheric pressure, References
wind, and waves) was also considered. 1. https://www.unisdr.org/we/inform/publications/42809
A set of 22 flood risk critical zones were assessed under three 2. Winsemius H C et al 2016 Global drivers of future river flood
different return periods (20, 100, and 1,000 years). Multiple risk Nat. Clim. Change 6 381–5
inundation maps were generated.
3. IPCC, Managing the Risks of Extreme Events and Disasters
Models have also been run for calibration and validation for
to Advance Climate Change Adaptation. A Special Report of
historic events.
Working Groups I and II of the Intergovernmental Panel on
Climate Change (Cambridge Univ. Press, 2012).
Using Flood Marks from Previous Incidents
The existing marks in infrastructure that were recorded from 4. http://science.sciencemag.org/content/357/6351/588 (DOI:
previous flood events have been compared with the simulated 10.1126/science.aan2506)

The image shows the maximum water depth for three different return periods.

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trademarks of their respective owners. CS22756 07/19