Urban flood modelling and climate change: A Melbourne area case study

Flooding in urban cities can cause damage to properties, disruption to business and traffic, discomfort to community and in some worse cases human loss. Floods occur due to meteorological, hydrological and human factors, which can be categorized as climate change and urbanization. Each of these factors will have its own effects on urban flooding; however, few studies have been conducted to assess the combined effects of these factors on that. Furthermore, the variability of flooding may increase in future due to climate change as well as increase in urbanization. We need to assess the risk of flooding to get a proper proactive preparedness. One case study to assess the effects of above mentioned factors in Melbourne area have been selected. Flooding in urban area is considerably sensitive to not only the intensity and duration of extreme events but also to hydrologic and hydraulic attributions of urban areas. Based on this as well as inputs from the council in Melbourne, climate change and urbanization been identified as key factors for increase in urban flooding. Urbanization is further sub-divided into the following three factors: - Increase in imperviousness in the catchment - Change in storage capacity of the catchment - Change in conveyance capacity of the catchment