Flash floods: challenges and needs for mitigation and adaptation

Speech Title:

Flash floods: challenges and needs for mitigation and adaptation

Abstract  

In recent decades, flash floods have become a major natural disaster and show a continuously increasing trend on a worldwide scale. Most of the recent events are generated by severe convective storms (SCS) that are becoming more frequent under climate change. The magnitude of the damages associated with flash floods has massively increased and is currently ranked at the first position by reinsurance companies. Efforts for mitigating effects of flash floods and adaptation strategies are deeply needed to reduced vulnerability of exposed populations. The presentation will review several recent catastrophic events observed around the world, identify some key lessons learned, underline the needs regarding early warning procedures and assess the efficiency of various modelling approaches that could be deployed to anticipate major events.

Biography

Philippe is professor of Hydroinformatics at Polytech Nice Sophia, the graduate school of engineering of Université Côte d’Azur, France. He started his career as hydraulic engineer in a French consulting company and was involved in projects in Europe, Africa and Asia. After joining University Côte d’Azur in 1997, he managed a wide range of research projects on hydro-environmental modelling within different frameworks including 16 European Commission projects as member, work package leader or coordinator. From 2004 to 2022, he coordinated a consortium of 5 Europeans universities, 9 international institutions, 60 water sector industrial actors for establishing, under the Erasmus Mundus framework, the EuroAquae joint M.Sc. on Hydrodroinformatics and Water Management. In 2012, Philippe initiated the Tianjin International Engineering Institute (TIEI) at Tianjin University (TJU), China and served as French director of the school that was the first Chinese institution to be accredited by French Government for engineer title. Philippe regularly advices international institutions, public bodies and consulting companies on water related projects and serve as legal expert for several major flood events. In 2015, Philippe was one of the founders of the Asian Water Council (AWC) promoting innovative solutions for water issues in Asia and currently serving as Vice President. Since September 2022, Philippe is serving as International Association for Hydro-Environment Engineering and Research (IAHR) president.

See Philippe Gourbesville's profile page on the IAHR website.

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