FAME

FAME objectives were to demonstrate improvements in flood modelling performance by incorporating EO derived products to calibrate flood models and to demonstrate a Spatial Information Service for flood modelling and mapping at catchment scale. This was achieved through a partnership between:

• Water authorities in Belgium and Italy who were the users with a mandate for flood risk assessment by modelling, flood damage prevention and flood damage cost assessment;
• Industry providing EO derived flood map products;
• R&D capability for the integration of river cross-section data with very high resolution DEMs to improve river flow modelling and the assessment of high resolution optical imagery for the up-dating of land use maps.

The following products were defined in close collaboration with the users, and proto-typed for the three catchments River Dender and River Demer in Belgium and River Entella in Italy:

• River cross sectional data integrated with high resolution digital elevation models (4 m, derived from LIDAR data);
• Flood maps (based on SAR images);
• Flood simulation models calibrated by SAR images;
• Composite hydrographs on the basis of discharge / duration / frequency distributions;
• Flood risk maps of different return periods;
• Updated land use and infrastructure maps (based on LANDSAT TM/ETM and IKONOS imagery).

Significant improvements in flood modelling performance by use of earth observation products was demonstrated.  FAME developed and demonstrated a Spatial Information Service for flood modelling and mapping within a Geographical Information Service (GIS) framework.