Author(s)

J. Simaityte, J. Augutis & E. Uspuras

Abstract

The floods occurring in Europe recently confirm that some natural phenomena are unexpected and very difficult to control. Despite this, the proper subjects of infrastructure and scientific institutes try to find common decisions to minimize flood risk levels as much as possible. Currently the European Commission is reviewing legal documents and in the near future EU countries will have to implement flood management directives. This paper presents a developed mathematical model of flood control which was applied for Kaunas hydropower system. The model consists of two parts: water level calculation algorithms, which were developed using only operational system data, and a risk based water level control model based on an optimization algorithm and integrated risk parameters. The model helps to accept risk based decisions during the flood period and offers alternatives of discharge and water level control near the dam. As a result the flood control characteristics and extreme scenarios are presented. Keywords: risk based decision making, flood management, optimization model. 1 Introduction Floods in recent years have brought huge economical losses and put a significant number of human lives in big danger. In 2006, the European Commission will review and negotiate six legislation acts and one of them is a flood management directive. On 18/01/2006 the European Commission proposed a directive on the assessment and management of floods [1]. Its aim is to reduce and manage the risks that floods pose to human health, the environment, infrastructure and property. Two trends point to an increased flood risk and to greater economic damage from floods in Europe. Firstly, the scale and frequency of floods are likely to increase in the future as a result of climate change, inappropriate river

Keywords

risk based decision making, flood management, optimization model.