CHE enhances flood prevention and management in the Ebro river basin
Challenges of the project
The Ebro river basin provides a substantial amount of Spain’s water resources. Its main river, which is 930 km long, flows through different climate zones in the north-east of the Iberian Peninsula, namely the Atlantic, the Mediterranean and a transition area characterized by a broad range of precipitation and transpiration rates.
The basin’s unique combination of geomorphological and climatological factors, along with the growing impact of climate change, explain the advent of river, pluvial and flash floods in the area throughout the year. The aim of this project was to reduce flood damage and provide an early warning system (EWS) for civil defense and other stakeholders managing disaster situations in the Ebro river basin.
Confederación Hidrográfica del Ebro (CHE) is the water authority that manages, regulates and maintains the Ebro river basin, which covers a surface area of around 85,000 km2 and takes in 347 large rivers in northeastern Spain.
It is the most extensive watershed in the country, accounting for 17% of the Spanish peninsula territory where around 3.2 million people live.
- Location: Ebro river basin, Spain
- Application: Xylem Vue EWS
Solution applied
The deployment of the Early Warning System (EWS) application, which is part of the Xylem Vue platform, provides CHE with early warnings during floods in a variety of scenarios.
The tool computes, analyzes and provides warnings and recommendations based on large amounts of data, provided by hydrological and meteorological sensors, rainfall radar, and weather forecasting models. The application:
- Uses cloud computing and big data analytics for real-time, probabilistic hydraulic and hydrological modelling.
- Applies geo-statistics and machine-learning techniques to improve data quality and leverages its AI inference engine and heuristics for better management recommendations.
- Runs every ten minutes and includes a comprehensive, user-friendly interface for enhanced risk warning and awareness.
The EWS also generates flood maps for different return periods, recommends actions for dams to minimize risks and damage, and helps to send warnings and alerts to selected mobile telephones and websites.
Read the complete case study
Benefits and results
Thanks to the implementation of the EWS application, CHE can:
- Respond to different types of floods (localized heavy rainfall, river floods, with/without snowmelt) and anticipate events days or hours before they occur.
- Activate disaster management protocols earlier, taking into account information on potentially affected infrastructures and facilities.
- Evaluate the performance of management protocols, entities, and communications and software systems, after every event to optimize the planning of future efforts and investments.
The EWS also enables CHE to forecast flows and levels accurately, to better understand the current and forecast hydrological status of the basin, and to reduce damage in dams thanks to advanced management.
The implementation of the EWS application, referred to as ‘VIGILAEbro’ by CHE, is in line with the European Floods Directive (2007/60/EC), which includes the need to develop Flood Risk Management Plans.
Specific warnings and alerts for stakeholders
Earlier activation of disaster management protocols
Advanced dam management to protect communities
Post-event flood response evaluation
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