1. More opportunities than extra work ? / !
Flanders Hydraulics Research – Wouter Vanneuville
Workshop WG-F, september 2008, Dublin

2. Introduction Who does what in Belgium? 2 policy domains
Regions are responsible (legislation (decrees)on same level as Belgian laws), so no national framework.
Juridical implementation linked with WFD
Technical implementation linked with WFD: international stream district plans
2 policy domains
VMM (Flemish Environmental Agency)
Deaprtment Mobility and Public Works

3. Introduction (2) Flanders Hydraulics Research Decision level
Technical implementation for water managers (W&Z, DS)
Flemish Risk Methodology
Decision level
CIW (coordination commission integrated water policy)
Working group water quantity
Working group water system knowledge …
Flemish Government
Before elections of June 2009

4. Definitions of risk Differs through era’s
Before 18th century (Petit Robert 1663): risk is a danger we are more or less able to foresee and we protect ourselves against it;
Since 18th century: risk is an accident that occurs once and never occurred in the past in a similar situation resulting in action from the public authorities to avoid it happens a second time.
Differs with the audience / sector
Justice: unforeseen and suddenly appearing with incontestable consequences;
Insurance: the evaluation of risk is the product of the severity related to the probability a harmful event occurs;
Culture (UNESCO): risk is the combination of chance of an event and its vulnerability.

5. FloodSite definitions
Language of risk report: practical definition
Risk = (probability) x (consequence)
Advantage of risk: not only return periods, differentiation in measures
Natural language: do we communicate effectively to the general public? (for Flanders: no)
Is there consistency in legislation? (for Flanders: no)
Consequences / vulnerability: + and –

6. Example: economic risk
A: probability low, consequences high
B: probability higher, consequences lower A B

7. Flemish methodology: concept

8. Flemish methodology: concept (2)w a t e
rstand O v e r s c h r i j d i n g s f r e q u e n t i e
RISK =
Σ (DAMAGE x FREQUENTY)

9. LATIS
No acronym, an old Celtic God of Water (and Beer)

10. Consequences: different types of damage
Tangible versus intangible
Monetary valuable versus non monetary valuable
Based on replacement values
Internal versus external
Damage in the flooded area or outside
Direct versus indirect
Indirect also called secondary damage
Indirect is often related to external damage too
Indirect damage is partly taken into account by rising factors
Act as a public authority: aggregated values
Comparable to a re-insurer + public goods

11. Since EXCIMAP
More attention to communication about maps (professionals)
More standardisation (lay-out, colour codes, classes)
Adding new elements to the existing methodology:
If values and “hydraulic parameter” vs. damage relations can be derived: full integration in the methodology
If no values available or relationships for damage can’t be integrated (with enough detail and level of accuracy): separated layers prepared for automated mapping

12. Affected inhabitants

13. Affected inhabitans Temporally in separated sub-modules
When “technical” information is accepted: full integration is optional
Data transformations always create:
Loss of information or
Increased data capacity needed!
(Huxhold W.E. & Levinsohn A.G., 1995, Managing Geographic Information System Projects, Oxford University Press, N.Y.)

14. Type of economic activity

15. Type of economic activity
Errors in maps were not that important in the past (only small parts of industrial sites)
Errors become very important now! (number of affected sites)
Actual procedure is manual (not really a lot of work for our models)
To increase objectivity and to decrease probability of random errors by manual interpretation a semi-automatic routine will be written
Integration with the existing model is decreasing the errors in the risk values (€/m².year)
Better basic data solving the problem cannot be expected for data sets covering the whole of Flanders (and also the hydraulic models are grid / raster files)
LATIS sub-models for industry are re-written more detailed and will be implemented next months

16. Polluting installations and protected areas
Added to the base layer packages so over-print is standardized;
Errors in available basic data layers are fixed manual;
Updates of basic data layers not automated in LATIS (will be a long time story)
Less influencing the Flemish methodology

17. Conclusions More opportunities than extra work !
EXCIMAP: good guidance for actions to make the risk model (LATIS) and output maps better (keep it simple!)
Triggering improvements in other tasks:
Semi-2D or 2D hydraulic models: what’s the added value?
Refinement (and better definitions) of victim models (and affected people) …
Thanks for your attention …
and questions (if time left …)