Research and Development
This part answers questions such as: Which projects are in process? How can students actively support us?
Research focus
Flood protection and the associated flood risk management is one of the most important social tasks of water management. Hydrological events in 2016 caused approx. 5000 fatalities and damages of approx. € 46 billion worldwide. The flood of 2013 on the Elbe and Danube caused a damage of approx. € 7 billion. Saxony-Anhalt had damages over € 10 million because of the flood in 2017. These numbers demonstrate the regional, national, and international relevance of this topic. The flood events in summer 2021, especially in western Germany and neighbouring countries, shows clearly that no country is protected from severe flood damage and related tragedies.
The primary goal of our research work will be to develop methods and tools that contribute to improve flood protection as well as support an adaptive and sustainable flood risk management. We focus on the approach of a complete system analysis at the catchment area. In the risk analysis it is important to include hydrology, hydraulics, reliability of flood protection structures, and the consequences for people, environment, culture, economy, critical infrastructures, and society. We would like to develop this approach.
Water management is also influenced by the increasing digitalization of society: keyword water management 4.0. Software development is one focus of our work, which is the basis of digitalization. That is why we are further developing the free software package ProMaIDes.
Regional, national, and international cooperation is mandatory for our work. If you are interested in collaborations or interested in our research, please contact us.
A new research area is the low flow risk management. There are some similarities but also differences to flood risk analysis. You can find more information here.
Project
Current
BMBF IKARIM HoWaMan
Joint project: Sustainable strategies and technologies for flood risk management in arid and semi-arid areas
Sub-project: Flood risk analysis in arid and semi-arid areas as part of flood risk management
Support: „Internationales Katastrophen-und Risikomanagement -IKARIM“ des BMBF im Rahmen des Programms „Forschung für die zivile Sicherheit“ der Bundesregierung
Duration: 1.3.2020 – 28.2.2023 (three years)
Partner:
- Chair and Institute for Hydraulic Engineering and Water Management (RWTH Aachen University); Project management
- Institute for Sociology, Chair for Sociology, Chair for Technology and Organization (RWTH Aachen University)
- Research Institute for Water and Waste Management at RWTH Aachen University
- Flood Competence Center e.V.(Cologne)
- KISTERS AG (Aachen)
- DMT GmbH & Co. KG (Essen)
Objectives and plans:
Climatically, Iran belongs to the arid to semi-arid regions. Floods are one of the most common natural disasters in Iran. Modern flood risk management is necessary to counter this natural hazard as effectively as possible.
Strategic flood risk management starts with the flood risk analysis. It is the basis for a risk acceptance and a flood risk reduction by measures if necessary. Focus of our sub-project will be on the construction, implementation, and evaluation of a model-based flood risk analysis at the catchment area of the Kan-river (Tehran, Iran). Flood risk analysis includes models from the generation of precipitation, hydrology, hydrodynamics, and analysis of the consequences (economy, people, critical infrastructure). Basis is the free software ProMaIDes.
Contact: If you have any questions about the project, please contact Mr. Shahin Khosh Bin Ghomash: shahin.khoshbinghomash@h2.de
BMBF IKARIM PARADeS
Joint project: Participative assessment of flood disaster prevention and development of an adapted coping strategy in Ghana
Sub-project: Damage analysis of critical infrastructures as part of the flood risk analysis
Support: „Internationales Katastrophen-und Risikomanagement -IKARIM“ des BMBF im Rahmen des Programms „Forschung für die zivile Sicherheit“ der Bundesregierung
Duration: 1.7.2020 – 30.6.2023 (three years)
Partner:
- University of Bonn, Institute of Geography (project management)
- Albert Ludwig University of Freiburg, professorship for forest and environmental policy
- Flood Competence Center e.V. (Cologne)
Objectives and plans:
Critical infrastructures (energy supply, water supply) are very important to society. Their functionality can be lost due to natural disaster such as floods. This has negative consequences for the population and infrastructure in the floodplain and beyond. The task of flood risk management is to protect the population and infrastructures from the natural disaster of flooding by useful measures.
The aim is to establish critical infrastructures and consequences of their failure in strategic flood risk management (disaster risk management / avoidance) and in operational flood risk management (disaster management) to improve their protection. The development of integrative tools that combine a model-based flood risk analysis with a model-based analysis of consequences of critical infrastructures is necessary for this. The focus of this development is on Ghana. Basis is the free software ProMaIDes.
Contact: If you have any questions about the project, please contact Mr. Roman Schotten: roman.schotten@h2.de
Student work
Student work, like bachelor and master thesis or internships, are an important part of the study. We would be pleased to take over the supervision of your thesis. Especially in the research of flood risk management, there are a multitude of interesting and exciting topics:
- Hydrology/ hydrodynamic modelling
- Dike reliability, reliability of mobile systems
- Critical infrastructures
- Impact-based flood prediction
- Sensors in dikes
- Damage analysis
- Costs of flood protection
- Flood educational trail for communication
- Flood resilience
- Development of wikis for our software ProMaIDes
- Disaster management in floods
The topics are usually integrated directly into a research project and thus directly support our research work.
If you are interested in these subjects or already have another topic idea, please contact us.
Below, selected thesis can be found.
