RELIABILITY OF FLOOD WARNING SYSTEMS

Citation
R. Krzysztofowicz et al., RELIABILITY OF FLOOD WARNING SYSTEMS, Journal of water resources planning and management, 120(6), 1994, pp. 906-926
Citations number
8
Categorie Soggetti
Engineering, Civil","Water Resources
ISSN journal
07339496
Volume
120
Issue
6
Year of publication
1994
Pages
906 - 926
Database
ISI
SICI code
0733-9496(1994)120:6<906:ROFWS>2.0.ZU;2-N
Abstract
Engineering planning and design of a local flood warning system should include a reliability analysis. The reliability of warnings can be qu antified in terms of the relative operating characteristic-a relation between the probability of detection and the probability of false warn ing of a zone of the floodplain-and its transformation, the performanc e trade-off characteristic-a relation between the expected number of d etections and the expeced number of false warning per year for a zone. Numerical procedures are derived for computing these two characterist ics. Two case studies in Pennsylvania are reported. The case of Milton , a town on the West Branch of the Susquehanna River, demonstrates fun damental tradeoffs between the reliability and the lead time of warnin gs. The case of Connellsville, on the Youghiogheny River, demonstrates synergistic gains in warning reliability due to a coupled solution: a flood-control dam of the U.S. Army Crops of Engineers and the river f orecasting technology of the National Weather Service.