Dangerous heavy rain: New maps warn of floods in Saarland!

Dangerous heavy rain: New maps warn of floods in Saarland!

Heavy rain elements have become an increasing problem in recent years. The heavy rainfall not only led to flooded cellars and impassable roads, but also caused massive damage to the infrastructure. In order to counteract this growing threat, the state government has now commissioned the creation of heavy rain and erosion hazard maps sol.de reported.

The project is coordinated by a team led by Professor Yörük at HTW Saar, who have developed models that simulate events such as a hundred-year rain event. This simulation could even reach extreme values ​​of up to 200 mm of rain per hour. The newly designed maps provide important information for predicting and assessing the consequences of heavy rain by visualizing flood areas, water depths and flow directions and speeds.

The benefits for disaster control and urban planning

The importance of such information becomes particularly evident in the event of a disaster. This gives emergency services a clear overview of which routes could be impassable in an emergency. The risk assessment cards sort the risks into four classes, from low to very high, allowing those responsible to respond better to impending dangers. These maps are not only essential for disaster control and urban planning, but also promote cooperation between municipalities in dealing with natural disasters.

In order to analyze the effects of erosion caused by heavy rain, dual erosion hazard maps are created nationwide. These are intended to help plan preventive measures and minimize sediment discharges into bodies of water. For the integration of the 2D model, a connection to the early warning system KliGAS is planned, which is intended to predict the effects and timing of heavy rain events.

The need for alerting

Another key aspect in the fight against heavy rain is alerting the population early. A comprehensive heavy rain early alarm system keeps citizens informed about impending flooding. The system continuously monitors rainfall, water levels and critical points in real time and transfers the recorded data to the cloud. An analysis is carried out there, which leads to the creation of a real-time digital twin of the community. This 3D visualization approach enables flooding scenarios to be demonstrated, while automatic alerts are issued in the event of an emergency via various channels, such as SMS or push messages starkregen.de explained.

The aim of the alarm system is to minimize damage, relieve the burden on emergency services and, above all, protect human lives. A three-stage alarm system offers location-based instructions and gives citizens clear instructions on how to behave. Data integration from local IoT sensor data and weather services promises a high level of precision and timeliness.

Growing threat from global warming

The frequency of heavy rain events has been increasing in Germany over the last few decades, which is primarily attributed to global warming. Between 2001 and 2023 there were over 26,000 such events. In order to improve safety from extreme weather, the federal government has started to introduce an online “Heavy Rain Danger Warning Map” for twelve federal states. These maps contain flood scenarios that are accurate to the square meter and support the planning of protective measures against floods. From a flood depth of 20 to 30 cm, water even becomes life-threatening, which underlines the importance of the maps tagesschau.de determines.

With the development and provision of these hazard maps and the timely alerting, the chance of protecting endangered areas and preparing the population accordingly increases. The measures are a step in the right direction to better address the dangers of climate change.