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APUNCH Introduction

APUNCH: Advanced Process UNderstanding and prediction of hydrological extremes and Complex Hazards

Recent flood events in Switzerland and across Europe have pointed out several deficiencies of the planning and prediction methods used for flood risk mitigation. Several critical points characterize the current hazard assessment methods. The rainfall space-time distribution is often not properly accounted for and a its relation to the onset, magnitude and intensity of the triggered hazards is poorly understood. Many modelling concepts are borrowed from hydrology and hydraulics of large size catchments and inappropriately transferred also to small and steep catchments. Strong coupling, interaction and feedack mechanisms among the chain of processes that lead a raindrop from the atmposphere to the floodplain are poorly understood. In this context, accounting for space time variability of the processes at the appropriate scale and representing the interactions among processes in simulation models become a key issue for accurate predictions. The goal of APUNCH is to gain a comprehensive and process chain based insight into the response of Alpine watersheds hit by storm rainfall events. This will be achieved by a multidisciplinary project context, where a combination of targeted laboratory with comprehensive and concurrent multiprocess field monitoring is expected to provide the new insights into the interaction mechanisms of the process chain, thus allowing the formulation of improved or new process models. Among others, some major challenges of the project are: (i) the investigation of the space-time structure of rainfall in mountainous regions; (ii) the laboratory and field experiments on initiation and evolution of sediment transport in steep channels and under rapdly varying flow conditions; (iii) the combination of physical modelling, field testing and numerical simulations to analyse and predict the conditions that lead to failure of dykes; (iv) the across-scales monitoring and modeling effort, which is expected to lead, on the long-term, on a process-based integrated watershed model system that can simulate the response of a watershed to set of complex hydrological hazards.

Keywords: rainfall space-time structure, X-Band radar, scaling stochastic model, disaggregation, GPS tomography, water vapour, hillslope erosion, sediment transport, hyperconcentrated flows, river engineering, dyke breach, numerical modelling, inundation, flooding, watershed modelling, sensor network technology, radiotracers

Disciplines: meteorology, hydrology, hydraulics, fluid mechanics, sediment transport, geotechnical engineering, electronics, computer sciences, geodesy

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APUNCH NEWS

The APUNCH-team is going to the EGU in Vienna

Three APUNCH-scientists will participate in the European Geosciences Union General Assembly (EGU) in Vienna (19 – 24 April 2009) and present their ongoing research activities.

For more information go to the news-page

APUNCH Data

APUNCH data will be illustrated here as soon as it is acquired. A first deployment is scheduled for May 2009.

Full SensorMap functionality is available here

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