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A cascading flash flood guidance system: development and application in Yunnan Province, China

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Abstract

Yunnan Province, located in Southwest China, suffers from massive flash flood hazards due to its complex mountainous hydrometeorology. However, traditional flash flood forecasting approaches can hardly provide an effective and comprehensive guide. Aiming to build a multilevel guidance system of flash flood warning for Yunnan, this study develops a Cascading Flash Flood Guidance (CFFG) system, progressively from the Flash Flood Potential Index (FFPI), the Flash Flood Hazard Index (FFHI) to the Flash Flood Risk Index (FFRI). First, land cover and vegetation cover data from MODIS products, the Harmonized World Soil Database soil map, and SRTM slope data are used in generating a composite FFPI map. In this process, an integrated approach of the analytic hierarchy process and the information entropy theory is used as a weighting method. Then, three standardized rainfall amounts (average daily amount in flood seasons, maximum 6 h and maximum 24 h amount) are added to derive FFHI. Further inclusion of GDP, population and flood prevention measures as vulnerability factors for the FFRI enabled prediction of the flash flood risk. The spatial patterns of the CFFG indices indicate that counties in east Yunnan are most susceptible to flash floods, which agrees with the distribution of observed flash flood events. Compared to other approaches, the CFFG system could be a useful prototype in mapping characteristics of China’s flash floods in a cascading manner (i.e., potential, hazard and risk) for users at different administrative levels (e.g., town, county, province and even nation).

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Acknowledgments

This study is partially supported by technical service projects of the China Meteorological Administration, “Technical Research on Meteorological Risk Warning of Flash Floods” (Grant Number: 20142661168) and “Development and Transformation of a Multi-scale Meteorological Disaster Chain Forecasting Model in China” (Grant Number: 20151451484).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. State Key Laboratory of Hydroscience and Engineering, Department of Hydraulic Engineering, Tsinghua University, Beijing, 100084, China

    Ziyue Zeng, Guoqiang Tang, Di Long, Chao Zeng & Yang Hong

  2. College of Water Sciences, Beijing Normal University, Beijing, China

    Meihong Ma

  3. School of Civil Engineering and Environmental Science, University of Oklahoma, Norman, OK, USA

    Yang Hong

  4. National Meteorological Center, China Meteorological Administration, Beijing, China

    Hui Xu

  5. State Key Laboratory of Severe Weather, Chinese Academy of Meteorological Sciences, Beijing, China

    Jing Xu

  6. State Key Laboratory of Hydroscience and Engineering, Department of Hydraulic Engineering, Tsinghua University, Room 207, Beijing, 100084, China

    Yang Hong

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  1. Ziyue Zeng
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Correspondence to Di Long or Yang Hong.

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Zeng, Z., Tang, G., Long, D. et al. A cascading flash flood guidance system: development and application in Yunnan Province, China. Nat Hazards 84, 2071–2093 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11069-016-2535-2

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