Flash – State of the art flash flood warning service for the City of Parramatta
- Client
- Royal Haskoning DHV
- Year
- 2018
- Location
- Parramatta (Sydney), Australia
Parramatta is described as Australia’s tiger economy. Located 23 kilometers west of Sydney’s central business district, it is rapidly driving growth and long-term prosperity for both businesses and residents. But when the clouds burst, City of Parramatta is prone to flash floods from the parramatta river.
To create a connected, resilient community and minimise the impact of flooding, City of Parramatta uses a state-of-the-art flood warning system. It is powered by Royal HaskoningDHV’s Flash® service, developed in partnership with Nelen & Schuurmans Consultancy, which has long standing experience in flood forecasting and information systems.
Royal Haskoning DHV implemented their flash flood warning service Flash to help The City of Parramatta to create better resilience and protection for residents and businesses from the negative impact of floods.
How Lizard was used to set up the Flash Service
The Flash® flood forecasting and warning service provides the City of Parramatta with a new flood forecast every 30 minutes. Lizard is used to set up the service.
Data engineers built a connection with the Bureau of Meteorology to import their advanced and detailed precipitation forecast. Together with water level monitoring data imported from the City of Parramatta, the precipitation is fed to a ultrafast 3Di flood hydrological model. This model, created by hydrological modelling experts, simulates a forecast of the water levels in the Parramatta River. The simulations are fed back to Lizard where they are post-processed to create maps that provide the system water depths, flood hazards and arrival times. Based on these maps alarms are triggered when a flood is expected. Once alarms are triggered, the flood simulations are automatically stored for evaluation and for the system to learn from the event.
Lizard Dashboard is used to create the monitoring dashboard of the system. Lizard Portal helps the City of Parramatta to explore flood simulation data and improve the cities responsiveness and resilience against floods.
Interested in Flash®? Reach out!
Send an email to ben.patterson@rhdhv.com and learn more on what Flash can do for your organization.