New Regional Flood Frequency Estimation (RFFE) method for the whole of Australia: overview of progress

Speaker: Ataur Rahman

Affiliation: University of Western Sydney

Time: Monday 30/09/2013 from 14:00 to 15:00

Venue: Access Grid UWS. Presented from Penrith (Y239), accessible from Parramatta (EB.1.32) and Campbelltown (26.1.50).

Abstract: Flood is one of the worst natural disasters causing significant damages to Australia. A new regional flood modelling is being developed in UWS in collaboration with the National Committee on Water Engineering. As a part of this, the regional flood frequency estimation (RFFE) models in Australian Rainfall and Runoff (ARR), referred to as "ARR RFFE 2012" are in the process of finalisation. The methods will allow the derivation of design flood estimates for annual exceedance probabilities (AEP) of 50% to 1% for catchments of 1 to 1,000 km2 anywhere in Australia. This talk gives an overview of the ARR RFFE 2012 method, covering data preparation, recommendation of the final test method and the development of the application tool in collaboration with WMA Water (Sydney). In the development of the final test method, a total of 676 gauged catchments have been used to create six regions covering Australia. For all the regions, the proposed prediction equations use only two predictor variables, catchment area and design rainfall intensity. An application tool has been prepared, which automates the application of the ARR RFFE 2012 method. The user is required to input latitude, longitude and catchment area to obtain design flood quantiles and associated uncertainty estimates with 90% confidence limits.

Biography: Assoc Professor Ataur Rahman has over 20 years experiences in water industries, research and universities in Australia and South-east Asia. He obtained his PhD degree in Hydrology from Monash University in Australia. His research interest includes flood hydrology, urban hydrology and environmental risk assessment. He received ‘The G. N. Alexander Medal’ from the Institution of Engineers Australia in 2002. He has published over 230 research papers, reports and book chapters in water and environmental engineering field. He is acting as Project 5 Leader (Regional flood methods) in the forthcoming revised version of Australian Rainfall and Runoff (ARR). He is serving in the editorial board of Australian Journal of Water Resources and international journal Water.