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Probabilistic flood mapping offers flood managers, decision makers, insurance agencies, and humanitarian relief organizations a useful characterization of uncertainty in flood mapping delineation. Probabilistic flood maps are also of high interest for data assimilation into numerical models. The direct assimilation of probabilistic flood maps into hydrodynamic models would be beneficial because it would eliminate the intermediate step of having to extract water levels first. This paper introduces a probabilistic flood mapping procedure based on synthetic aperture radar (SAR) data. Given a SAR image of backscatter values, we construct a total histogram of backscatter values and decompose this histogram into probability distribution functions of backscatter values associated with flooded (open water) and non-flooded pixels, respectively. These distributions are then used to estimate, for each pixel, its probability of being flooded. The new approach improves on binary SAR-based flood mapping procedures, which do not inform on the uncertainty in the pixel state. The proposed approach is tested using four SAR images from two floodplains, i.e., the Severn River (U.K.) and the Red River (U.S.). In all four test cases, reliability diagrams, with error values ranging from 0.04 to 0.23, indicate a good agreement between the SAR-derived probabilistic flood map and an independently available validation map, which is obtained from aerial photography. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Hybrid energy storage system (HESS) based on Li-ion and supercapacitor (SC) can play a potential role to stabilize the grid by providing the fast frequency ancillary services. The SC helps to reduce the battery charge/discharge stress and, hence, assists to extend the battery lifespan. The power sharing method (PSM) is the heart in control part to improve the HESS performance and reduce the battery stress. This paper proposes a hybrid PSM and investigates its impact on battery life extension along with its relation to the system design and regulation signal. The performance of hybrid PSM is compared with three other PSMs (low-pass filter, first and second rule based) in a 10 MW/10 MWh full-active parallel HESS for frequency regulation service in two networks: U.K. (national grid) and USA (PJM). Considering maximum possible battery lifetime upto 25 years, result shows that the hybrid PSM approach allows a degree of the better performance for both grid while the sharing of SC is kept maximum 2.0% and 2.5% (for U.S. and U.K. grid, respectively) of the HESS capacity. This study also analyses the impact of PSM on shared capacity and design of HESS for different grid regulation signals. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]