Abstract
Floods and stormwater events are the costliest natural catastrophes. Costs are expected to increase due to urbanization and climate change. Mitigation is needed. Different stakeholders with different motivations unfortunately often evaluate vulnerability by using fragmented and incomplete data sources. This paper intends to review the different approaches for collecting and analyzing data, and to evaluate their usefulness within the proposed framework for a “smart” use of data. The objectives of this work have been to review qualitatively and quantitatively a selection of Norwegian stormwater-related databases and to propose measures for improvement. The findings are seen according to the climate services literature and show that that data is spread around a heterogeneous community of stakeholders concerned with different motivations, different needs, and different levels of data processing. In general, the needs of the different stakeholders have not been surveyed and defined systematically enough and there is a substantial potential in upgrading from the delivery of passive raw data to the delivery of knowledge-driven decision-support tools.
Highlights
– the participant should either own, maintain, or use a database, – the database should provide a record for a selection of objects or events, and – at least part of the registered objects should be either related to stormwater systems or potentially exposed to damages due to stormwater, or – at least part of the registered events should be related to causes or consequences of stormwater events
Selected participants were showed to own and/or maintain several databases each according to their needs and responsibilities: IO1 uses its database as display solution for providing different types of information to its employees, IO2 uses its database to efficiently document and follow-up all maintenance routines for its employees, IO3 uses its database for informing the general public about past events and future forecasts related to natural hazards, MUN uses its database (based on Gemini software product (Holte, 2010)) to efficiently distribute tasks to its employees and to collect reports
Decision support systems or services are seldom linked to stormwaterrelated databases
Summary
Why stormwater matters Stormwater, which is sometimes referred to as “urban flooding”. Stormwater may be referred to as “surface water flooding” under the general definition of “non-fluvial floods” (Bernet et al, 2017). There are several ways in which stormwater can cause the flooding of a property: overflow from rivers and streams, sewage pipe backup into buildings, seepage through building wall and floors, and the accumulation of stormwater on property and in public rights-of-way (The Centre for Neighborhood Technology, 2014). Stormwater damage has increased significantly the last years due to increasing property values of buildings, extended use of buildings – i.e. basements – more deliberate property owners and more intense rainfall. Risk analyses have been identified as a prerequisite to the effective mitigation of the negative consequences of floods and stormwater events
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