Sub-seasonal Levee Deformation Observed Using Satellite Radar Interferometry to Enhance Flood Protection.

Levees are critical in providing protection against catastrophic flood events, and thus require continuous monitoring. Current levee inspection methods rely on limited information obtained by visual inspection, resulting in infrequent, localized, mostly qualitative and subjective assessments. This hampers the timely detection of problematic locations and the assessment of levee safety in general.

Trends in flood losses in Europe over the past 150 years.

Adverse consequences of floods change in time and are influenced by both natural and socio-economic trends and interactions. In Europe, previous studies of historical flood losses corrected for demographic and economic growth ('normalized') have been limited in temporal and spatial extent, leading to an incomplete representation of trends in losses over time. Here we utilize a gridded reconstruction of flood exposure in 37 European countries and a new database of damaging floods since 1870.

The use of individual and societal risk criteria within the Dutch flood safety policy--nationwide estimates of societal risk and policy applications.

The Dutch government is in the process of revising its flood safety policy. The current safety standards for flood defenses in the Netherlands are largely based on the outcomes of cost-benefit analyses. Loss of life has not been considered separately in the choice for current standards.

Loss of life caused by the flooding of New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina: analysis of the relationship between flood characteristics and mortality.

In this article a preliminary analysis of the loss of life caused by Hurricane Katrina in the New Orleans metropolitan area is presented. The hurricane caused more than 1,100 fatalities in the state of Louisiana. A preliminary data set that gives information on the recovery locations and individual characteristics for 771 fatalities has been analyzed.

Flood risk assessment in The Netherlands: a case study for dike ring South Holland.

Large parts of The Netherlands are below sea level. Therefore, it is important to have insight into the possible consequences and risks of flooding. In this article, an analysis of the risks due to flooding of the dike ring area South Holland in The Netherlands is presented.

An analysis of the causes and circumstances of flood disaster deaths.

The objective of this paper is to investigate and to improve understanding of the causes and circumstances of flood disaster deaths. A standardised method of classifying flood deaths is proposed and the difficulties associated with comparing and assessing existing information on flood deaths are discussed. Thirteen flood cases from Europe and the United States, resulting in 247 flood disaster fatalities, were analysed and taken as indicative of flood disaster deaths.