Flood mapping of the Flemish Environmental Society

14 January 2011, 8:13pm

Flood mapping of the Flemish Environmental Society (Vlaamse Milieu Maatschappij). SIGGIS develops a mapping web application with editing functions within one week.

The large flood of mid-November 2010 caused great inconvenience, damage and human suffering. During the floods many people were informed thanks to the medias making known regional flooding information via the flood forecaster, a website that shows the expectations of flooding based on real-time (live) measurements and an elevation model.

The Department of Operational Water Management of the Vlaamse Milieu Maatschappij (VMM) also plays a crucial role in monitoring the continued flooding effects. They have to keep official records of the highest flooding levels as well as accompanying inventories. This data can then help in the rectification of future policies and management and can make flood forecasting, design studies, water consulting, etc., equally more accurate.

Immediately after massive flooding, however, the VMM was lacking a central map-based tool to register the flood data. With SIGGIS’s assistance, the decision was made to set up a provisional registration tool for these short critical periods.

It was decided to develop an online mapping application based upon the ArcGIS Server 10 platform and the Adobe Flex API. This application was designed and developed by SIGGIS in less than a week.

The river basin coordinators can now register or record the following basic information via the Internet:

- Flood areas by means of a simple drawing tool with date and time input.
- Flooding levels on calibrated indoor and outdoor thresholds.
- Houses can be classified in terms of flooding affects. This way cause and time can be entered.

As reference maps, the following geographic data layers are being used:

- The waterways from the Flemish Hydrographic Atlas
- Street map, including a location finder
- Aerial photographs
- Definition of flood areas based on helicopter assessments shortly after the disaster

The application is now online and receiving all records from the river basin coordinators. The Department of Operational Water Management can now centrally manage and continue to work in a structured way to correct the final details of the flood perimeter.

It was crucial to have this application ready in a very short timeframe. VMM and SIGGIS managed it without any problems and have proven together how Flanders can act quickly also around Geographical Information Systems.

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