With respect to climate change, there is an increasing attention in scientific and policy making communities of weather-related disaster risks. Moreover, there is increasing need to assess costs and benefits of climate adaptation at scales beyond river basins, in order to set priorities for action and financing in the context of the EU Adaptation Strategy at the European scale. The goal of this research as part of the FP7 BASE project is to develop a riverine flood risk model that can be applied at Pan-European scale and that is able to project changes in flood risk due to climate change and socio-economic developments in the future. For this purpose, the global flood hazard estimation method developed by Winsemius et al. (2013), that produces return period flood inundation datasets at 30 arc second resolution, for present day (EU WATCH) and future climate forcing (IPCC scenarios RCP4.5 and 8.5). These datasets are used for the land-used based assessment of flood impacts. In addition, the current standard of flood protection as firstly applied in Jongman et al. (2014) is considered in this European flood risk model. Compared to previous studies, the high resolution of both hazard and exposure input data as well as the use of the CLC 2006 dataset and the consideration of GDP up to the NUTS3 level allow for a detailed assessment of current and future flood risks. The results show the expected changes in flood risk in the future. For example, on a NUTS2 level, flood risk increases in some regions up to 179% (between the baseline scenario 1960-1999 and time slice 2049). On country level flood risk increases up to 60% for selected climate models. Further results of this flood risk analysis on a European scale will be shown at the conference. The results will be critically discussed under the aspect of major uncertainties in both future flood hazards as well as in the applied depth-damage functions. As part of the current research, the results from this study are compared with flood risk assessments on either local or regional scales. The findings from this analysis will be also presented at the conference.
A significant portion of the world´s population lives in coastal cities and their main economic activities occur along the coast and are heavily dependent on good water quality. Deciding which is the best alternative in the treatment of the wastewater is a complex technical and financial decision in order to achieve the quality standards required by legislation. Aiming to assist designers and environmental control offices, this work will demonstrate the effects that different effluents and discharge configurations have on marine waters. The method uses CORMIX, a hydrodynamic modeling software which is based on an integral method, capable of predicting the geometric characteristics and dilution of the initial mixing zone. The model was run in a time-series mode, representing one data month with the change in the environment and effluent characteristics which occur each time step, with the field data obtained for the project of the submarine outfalls of Cartagena, located in Colombia. This series was simulated by CorTime, a post-processing submodule of CORMIX, for nine study scenarios. There were three effluent types (sewage, cooling water and industrial effluents) discharged by three different discharge configurations (multiport diffusers, submerged single tube and channel with free surface). The results obtained with the time series were representative to the field data used and help analyzing the plume behavior and variability of each scenario. The best dilution occurred to the multiport diffusers (198 _ S _ 1839) with well distribuited plumes until the depth, by the major contact between the effluent and the marine waters. The other discharges presented dilutions under 100, with lower efficiency, thin plumes (less than 2,4 m), concentrated on the surface (sewage) or on the sea bottom (industrial effluent). These cases need greater investment in effluent treatment, they cause greater environmental impact, visual aspect concerns on the surface and the ecosystem on the sea bottom. The plume of the onshore channel discharge configuration always reached the coast, thus having the potential of problems related to bathing water quality.