Darren Lumbroso

HR Wallingford · Floods and Water Management

Direct current meter measurements are rarely available for extreme flash floods. Corresponding discharges are generally estimated using so-called "indirect" techniques such as the slope - area method. These methods are based on empirical hydraulic formulae that typically use Manning's equation, and have been calibrated and also widely tested for fl...

This paper provides a comparison of the causes, effects and aftermaths of the coastal flooding that occurred on the east coast of England in 1953 and the west coast of France in 2010 that resulted in 307 and 47 deaths respectively. The causes of both events are strikingly similar. Both were caused by a combination of high tides, low atmospheric pre...

It is widely recognised that the current abstraction licensing system in England needs to be reformed to meet the challenges of future environmental flow requirements, likely increases in water demands and climate change. The UK Government has committed to the reform of the abstraction regime in England and work is underway, including the Welsh Gov...

This policy brief focuses on hydropower infrastructure in sub-Saharan Africa. It investigates the climate change risks and the use of climate services in decision-making and makes recommendations for actions to enhance the resilience of hydropower schemes. It summarises a more comprehensive paper prepared to support the scoping phase of the Future...

In recent years the number of tailings dams failures has increased. On 25 January 2019, the Brumadinho tailings dam in Brazil suddenly failed, releasing a mudflow over 10 m deep comprising some 107 m3 of mining waste which killed between 270 and 320 people. This paper details the use of an agent-based model, known as the Life Safety Model (LSM), to...

A central aim of climate services is the design and delivery of information that is tailored and targeted to different decision-making contexts. To assess whether climate services are meeting this aim, it is necessary to take stock of the progress that has been made while also identifying where the gaps and additional needs remain. This paper provi...

Over the past 30 years, Sudan has experienced several severe floods which have caused loss of life and significant damage to property. The frequency and intensity of floods in Sudan are predicted to increase as a result of climate change. The main objective of this research was to assist policymakers in establishing a mechanism for public participa...

Dengue is expanding globally, but how dengue emergence is shaped locally by interactions between climatic and socio-environmental factors is not well understood. Here, we investigate the drivers of dengue incidence and emergence in Vietnam, through analysing 23 years of district-level case data spanning a period of significant socioeconomic change...

The Life Safety Model (LSM) is an agent-based model which assists with emergency planning and risk assessments for floods and dam failures by providing estimates of fatalities and evacuation times. The LSM represents the interactions of agents (i.e. people, vehicles, and buildings) with the floodwater. The LSM helps to increase the accuracy of esti...

Dengue is expanding globally, but how dengue emergence is shaped locally by interactions between climatic and socio-environmental factors is not well understood. Here, we investigate the drivers of dengue incidence and emergence in Vietnam, through analyzing 23-years of monthly district-level case data spanning a period of significant socioeconomic...

Water-Energy-Food (WEF) Nexus interactions vary from seemingly negative and intractable wicked problems to opportunities for enhanced sustainability. The aim of this paper is to review the current state of understanding on WEF resource interactions and to provide a roadmap to enhance integrated resource management. A qualitative perspective based o...

Purpose of review The purpose of this review is to summarize research articles that provide risk estimates for the historical and future impact that climate change has had upon dengue published from 2007 through 2019. Recent findings Findings from 30 studies on historical health estimates, with the majority of the studies conducted in Asia, emphas...

This paper focusses on identifying the responses to coastal climate change that are of interest for decision-making by end users and the delivery and the necessary communication process for this information. The focus is on representation of climate (response) information in a form that provides sufficient clarity in the midst of uncertainty for en...

Background With enough advanced notice, dengue outbreaks can be mitigated. As a climate-sensitive disease, environmental conditions and past patterns of dengue can be used to make predictions about future outbreak risk. These predictions improve public health planning and decision-making to ultimately reduce the burden of disease. Past approaches t...

Recruitment of temperate eel species Anguilla anguilla, A. rostrata & A. japonica has declined over the last few decades due to human activities, such as overfishing and construction of migratory barriers (e.g. dams, weirs and sluices) and hazardous energy infrastructure (e.g. turbines, intakes and outfalls). Numerical models, substantiated with da...

During the past decade, there have been a number of catastrophic tailings dam failures. Affordable monitoring systems, as well as methods to assess the risk posed to communities living downstream of these structures, are needed. In recent years the availability and accuracy of remote sensing information has increased, whilst its cost has decreased....

This paper presents the development and application of a dam breach model, EMBREA-MUD, which is suitable for tailings dams. One of the common failure modes for these structures is breaching due to overtopping, which together with the flow of liquefied tailings, is simulated by the proposed model. The model simultaneously computes the outflow of wat...

In recent years the number of tailings dams failures has increased. On 25 January 2019, the Brumadinho tailings dam in Brazil suddenly failed releasing a mudflow over 10 m deep comprising some 10 million m3 of mining waste which killed between 270 and 320 people. This paper details the use of an agent-based model, known as the Life Safety Model (LS...

Timely information is key for decision-making. The ability to predict dengue transmission ahead of time would significantly benefit planners and decision-makers. Dengue is climate-sensitive. Monitoring climate variability could provide advance warning about dengue risk. Multiple dengue early warning systems have been proposed. Often, these systems...

As part of the Scoping Study for the SHEAR Programme, a workshop was held on 9 December 2013 at the Wellcome Trust in London. The workshop was attended primarily by UK-based researchers working in the three regions. The workshop was based around group-based discussions on: • Current relevant research, and identification of research gaps • Identify...

Estimates of design flood flows; are important for the design of a wide variety of civil engineering structures. In the United Kingdom, the Flood Estimation Handbook (FEH) methodologies are used by practitioners to estimate flood flows. Until recently it was challenging for practitioners to include additional non‐continuous flood information, such...

The scientific literature has many methods for estimating uncertainty, however, there is a lack of information about the characteristics, merits and limitations of the individual methods, particularly for making decisions in practice. This paper provides an overview of the different uncertainty methods for flood forecasting that are reported in lit...

The water-energy-food (WEF) nexus has become a popular, and potentially powerful, frame through which to analyse interactions and interdependencies between these three systems. Though the case for transdisciplinary research in this space has been made, the extent of stakeholder engagement in research remains limited with stakeholders most commonly...

This poster shows the performance of the GloFAS forecast using proxy flood event data in the North East of Uganda and poses the question: “How can the performance of forecasts be analysed when data is limited and uncertain?”.

Uganda is at high risk from a variety of hazards, which have the potential to adversely affect progress on poverty reduction and economic growth. The World Bank has estimated that at least 200,000 Ugandans are affected by disasters each year. The Government of Uganda has identified drought as the most severe disaster affecting the lives and livelih...

Sub-Saharan Africa is affected by three main weather-related hazards: floods, droughts, and tropical cyclones. Effective early warning systems (EWSs) can reduce the risks posed by these hazards. There have been numerous EWSs set up throughout Africa; however, work out to assess their effectiveness has been limited. This paper covers sub-Saharan Afr...

London and the Thames Estuary's floodplain in the southeast of England are susceptible to flooding from storm surges. They are protected from floods with a return period of up to 1,000 years by the Thames Barrier and a series of flood defences. Owing to climate change the Thames Barrier and its associated defences will need to be upgraded to mainta...

The increased availability and application of probabilistic weather forecasts in flood forecasting means that the uncertainty arising from the precipitation forecast can be assessed. This has led to a wider interest in how uncertainty is affecting flood forecast systems. In literature there are general techniques and principles available on how to...

Recent events in the USA have highlighted a lack of resilience in the coastal population to coastal flooding, especially amongst disadvantaged and isolated communities. Some low-income countries, such as Cuba and Bangladesh, have made significant progress towards transformed societies that are more resilient to the impacts of cyclones and coastal f...

Recent events in the USA have highlighted a lack of resilience in the coastal population to coastal flooding, especially amongst disadvantaged and isolated communities. Some low-income countries, such as Cuba and Bangladesh, have made significant progress towards transformed societies that are more resilient to the impacts of cyclones and coastal f...

Justification for evacuation and evacuation planning is sometimes questioned and there is a need develop approaches which justify the planning and associated expenditure. To this end, it was decided to carry out a pilot evaluation of the impact of a hurricane storm surge flooding on Brunswick, GA, using a dynamic agent based model that represents p...

The Global Flood Awareness System (GloFAS), jointly developed by the European Commission and the European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts (ECMWF), is independent of administrative and political boundaries. It couples state-of-the art weather forecasts with a hydrological model and with its continental scale set-up it provides downstream c...

Low-income countries are significantly more vulnerable than high-income countries to the risks posed by natural hazards. This paper describes the findings of research into stakeholders’ perceptions of the overall effectiveness of early warnings and risk assessments for weather-related hazards (i.e. cyclones, floods, droughts and landslides), for hu...

There are currently significant levels of investment across Uganda into systems that collect and share early warning information on a range of hazards including: floods, droughts, diseases and conflicts. The UK Government’s Department for International Development (DFID) has contributed to these early warning systems both at a national level and wi...

This paper describes the use of an agent-based model, known as the Life Safety Model (LSM) and a Monte Carlo analysis to assess the effectiveness of emergency management interventions in terms of loss of life, taking into account uncertainties in the physical characteristics of the population at risk, represented by people's height and mass. The wo...

Justification for evacuation and evacuation planning is sometimes questioned and there is a need develop approaches which justify the planning and associated expenditure. To this end, it was decided to carry out a pilot evaluation of the impact of a Hurricane Storm surge flooding on Brunswick, GA using a dynamic Agent Based Model that represents pe...

There are over 580 million people in sub-Saharan Africa without access to electricity. The region has significant untapped hydropower potential that could contribute to improving domestic access to electricity and countries’ economic development, as well as helping to meet the Sustainable Development Goals. Changes in climate affect hydropower gene...

There have been many initiatives to strengthen weather and climate information and services across Africa in the last decade or so, with numerous valuable outcomes. However, it is commonly observed that availability and uptake of information and services is still relatively low and that this represents a threat to social and economic development....

The UK Government's Department for International Development (DFID) is considering a new programme on climate information and services in sub-Saharan Africa, building on existing initiatives and a providing a step change in the use of climate information to support poverty reduction and promote socio-economic development. As part of the scoping fo...

This policy brief focuses on port infrastructure in sub-Saharan Africa. It investigates the climate change risks, the use of climate services in decision-making and makes recommendations for actions to enhance the resilience of port infrastructure. It summarises a more comprehensive paper prepared to support the scoping phase of the Future Climate...

The aim of this technical report is to understand the state of climate information and services in South Asia, and considering possible intervention options aimed at strengthening the gathering, use and application of weather and climate information across the region for better decision making and responses around weather and climate risks. This sc...

This technical document is part of scoping study commissioned by DFID to understand the state of climate information and services in South Asia and to identify possible intervention options aimed at strengthening the gathering, use and application of climate information across the region for better decision making and responses. The first phase of...

The report focuses on port infrastructure in sub-Saharan Africa. It investigates the climate change risks and the current use of climate science for decision making. It provides recommendations on the opportunities for climate services within the planning of ports.

The Harnessing Hydropower study aimed to provide an analysis of the historical performance of hydropower in selected countries and an assessment of the risks and opportunities related to the performance of schemes under future climate change in the context of water, energy and food security. This was undertaken through a literature review and short...

The Harnessing Hydropower study aims to provide an analysis of the historical performance of hydropower in selected countries and an assessment of the risks and opportunities related to future climate change in the context of water, energy and food security. The target audience for this work is Department for International Development (DFID) staff...