A Cost-Effectiveness Protocol for Flood-Mitigation Plans Based on Leeds’ Boxing Day 2015 Floods
2020
Onno Bokhove | Mark A. Kelmanson | Thomas Kent | Guillaume Piton | Jean-Marc Tacnet
Inspired by the Boxing Day 2015 flood of the River Aire in Leeds, UK, and subsequent attempts to mitigate adverse consequences of flooding, the goals considered are: (i) to revisit the concept of flood-excess volume (FEV) as a complementary diagnostic for classifying flood events: (ii) to establish a new roadmap/protocol for assessing flood-mitigation schemes using FEV: and, (iii) to provide a clear, graphical cost-effectiveness analysis of flood mitigation, exemplified for a hypothetical scheme partially based on actual plans. We revisit the FEV concept and present it as a three-panel graph using thresholds and errors. By re-expressing FEV as a 2 m -deep square lake of equivalent capacity, one can visualise its dimensions in comparison with the river valley considered. Cost-effectiveness of flood-mitigation measures is expressed within the FEV square-lake: different scenarios of our hypothetical flood-mitigation scheme are then presented and assessed graphically, with each scenario involving a combination, near and further upstream of Leeds, of higher (than existing) flood-defence walls, enhanced flood-plain storage sites, giving-room-to-the-river bed-widening and natural flood management. Our cost-effectiveness analysis is intended as a protocol to compare and choose between flood-mitigation scenarios in a quantifiable and visual manner, thereby offering better prospects of being understood by a wide audience, including citizens and city-council planners. Using techniques of data analysis combined with general river hydraulics, common-sense and upper-bound estimation, we offer an accessible check of flood-mitigation plans.
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