1. A GIS tool for flood risk analysis in Flanders (Belgium)
- Author
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Ph. De Maeyer, Georges Allaert, Hussain Saleh, R. De Sutter, Pieter Deckers, Wim Kellens, and Wouter Vanneuville
- Subjects
Risk analysis ,Government ,Flood myth ,Belgium, Flanders ,Climate change ,Risk management tools ,GIS ,language.human_language ,Flood control ,Flemish ,Geography ,Risk analysis (engineering) ,Flood risk assessment ,Information system ,language ,Analysis - Abstract
In recent decades, the low-lying Flanders region (Belgium) has fallen victim to numerous flood events, causing substantial damage to buildings and infrastructure. In response to this, the Flemish government proposed a new approach that considers the level of risk as method of safety measurement. Using geographical information systems, this evolution has led to a comprehensive risk methodology, and more recently to the development of a flood risk assessment tool called LATIS. By estimating the potential damage and the number of casualties during a flood event, LATIS offers the possibility of performing risk analysis in a fast and effective way. This paper presents a brief overview of the currently used methodology for flood risk management in Flanders and its implementation in the LATIS tool. The usefulness of this new tool is demonstrated by a sequence of risk calculations, performed in the framework of climate change impacts on flood risk in Flanders.
- Published
- 2008