Dr. Kristina Wolf

In support of the United Nations Sustainable Development Goal 11 to make cities inclusive, safe, resilient and sustainable, this project develops a geospatial flood database model to assess the impact of floods on the environment, society and infrastructure in Newcastle upon Tyne (UK).

The Environment Agency's Risk of Flooding from Surface Water dataset 3.3 percent annual chance will be used to answer questions, such as: Which flood-impacted areas have vulnerable population groups? Where are the most flooded buildings? How much agriculture is impacted? Financial damage of flooded residential buildings is estimated based on flood depth, building type and year. The model further integrates dynamic (real-time) river level measures from the Environment Agency UK and daily rainfall accumulation from the Urban Observatory Newcastle. 

This solution presents a novel modelling approach combining spatial analysis with data science. It integrates heterogeneous data from different sources, such as Environment Agency, Office for National Statistics and UK Government in a common framework, designs a flood geodatabase model and provides assessment capabilities for three different areas. Integrating dynamic weather and environmental data in real-time provides added value to stakeholders compared to conventional hazard maps.