Our Project

NEWFRAME

Executive
Summary

Who are we?

NEWFRAME brings together the expertise of two research units, UNIPV and IUSS, experienced
respectively in the mathematical modeling of urban drainage networks and in risk assessment
associated with extreme events

Our Project

Due to the climate change and urbanization processes in progress, which are causing the growth of rain event intensities and water discharges, urban flooding occurs today with more and more rapid dynamics. Therefore, urban flooding events are also called flash floods. Considering on the one hand the high social and economic value exposed, due to the presence of people and goods, and on the other hand the difficulties in implementing preventive and mitigation measurements, it is extremely important to assess properly the risk associated with these events. In this context, the traditional risk assessment approach has the drawback of considering all exposed elements independent from each other. This assumption does not hold in urban areas because of the thick network of interconnections. The topic of the research project NEWFRAME is the update of the risk assessment approach, with the objective to consider the exposed elements connected to each other in a single system.

Aims of
the project

1. The fundamental aim of the research project NEWFRAME is to develop a new framework for the assessment of the urban flash flood risk, which takes into account the connections between the exposed elements. As an example of connection between elements one could take the link student-bus-school, in which it is obvious that a disruption to the bus service, caused by the flooding of a bus stop, may impact on the students’ ability to go to school.

2. The new methodology will enable better estimation of the vulnerability of the system exposed value and, consequently, of the risk as the product of probability of occurrence, vulnerability and exposed value.

3. In a real case study (municipality of Monza), the results of the new method will be compared with those of the traditional method, which estimates the exposed value regardless of the element interconnections.

NEWFRAME

Strategy

Fhirst phase

  • Collection of data in the municipality of Monza
  • Development of the hydraulic model of the drainage network and of the central town as a possible site of flooding.

Second phase

  • Creation of hazard maps, associated with historical and/or synthetic events.
  • Evaluation of vulnerability, exposure and risk, both with the traditional methodology and with the innovative approach. The new methodology will model the set of interconnections by means of Graph Theory concepts.

Third phase

  • NEWFRAME will disseminate all the activities and outcomes of the project
  • NEWFRAME will integrate them into the existing Geographic Information System (GIS, and Integrated Territorial System – SIT) managed by the municipality of Monza

Expected
Results

NEWFRAME project is expected to yield results at two different scales, both global and local scale.

1. A significant advancement of the scientific knowledge at a global scale

  • Development of a new approach of collective flash-flood risk assessment based on Graph Theory;
  • Enhancement of the risk assessment methodology considering the exposed elements connected to each other in a single system.

2. Benefits for the Monza territory at a local scale:

  • Development of flood maps associated with historical events and/or synthetic scenarios;
  • Evaluation of the flash-flood risk with an innovative approach.
  • Civil society’s active involvement to better react to flash-flood events.
  • Update of the SIT with the information obtained during the project.

The spread of the global results will take place by publishing papers in scientific journals and in conference proceedings at both the national and international levels. For the dissemination of the results on the local scale, workshops and meetings with the various associations of citizens interested in the project will be scheduled.

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