Comprehensive flood risk analysis at your fingertip through cloud-computing and standardized approach

Abstract

Royal HaskoningDHV has been developing the Global Flood Risk Tool (GFRT). The GFRT is Royal HaskoningDHV’s cloud-based platform that delivers accurate and comprehensible flood risk analysis and recommends investment proposals to reduce risk on losing lives and economic damages. The online tool is being developed inhouse by a multidisciplinary team comprising experts with geospatial, software development and flood risk expertise. The tool is written in 100% open-source software and calculates its computations on the Amazon Web Service. Clients who are currently using the tool are port authorities, private industries and international financial institutes. GFRT conducts a thorough flood risk analysis through a 5-steps approach and delivers a set of customized flood risk reduction strategies. The output is generated instantly (also for multiple scenarios), and the tool is set up in such a way that it can easily connect to, integrate or exchange with other services, tools and models. This paper shows a user case from the Port of Rotterdam, to demonstrate how the tool has been applied, how it helped the client and what were additional benefits. Furthermore, opportunities that lie ahead of the tool to continuously improve flood risk assessments and flood risk reduction strategy formulation are discussed.