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Newsletter |
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Contacts |
SAS
Dr. Ladislav Hluchy
CYFRONET
Prof. M. Turala
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The usefulness of Grid technology for supporting flood crisis
teams on international rivers
is
being
studied. The challenges in this task are the acquisition of
significant resources at short notice, near-real-time response,
the combination of distributed data management and distributed
computing, the computational requirements for the
combination of hydrological
(snowmelt-rainfall-runoff) and hydraulic (water surface
elevation, velocity, dam breaking, damage assessment etc.)
models and, eventually, mobile access under adverse conditions.
2D visualisation of simulation results is currently possible,
but needs adaptation to the Grid environment; additional
possibilities for 3D visualisation will be investigated.
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CrossGrid, an IST
Programme R&D Project Supports a Grid
Infrastructure for Flood Management
Decision Making
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The recent
extreme floods in Europe
and, in particular, Central
Europe
resulted in
scientific and societal
concerns about the
reliability of short-term
quantitative meteorological
forecasts and flood
forecasts in Slovakia.
Besides the danger of
flooding in large basins,
flash floods present a
serious threat, because of
the specific physiographic
conditions of the country.
Flood
forecasting requires
quantitative precipitation
forecasts based on
meteorological simulations
of different resolution from
the meso-scale to the
storm-scale. Especially for
flash floods,
high-resolution (1 km)
regional atmospheric models
have to be used along with
remote sensing data
(satellite, radar). From the
quantitative precipitation
forecast, hydrological
models are used to determine
the discharge from the
affected area. Based on this
information, hydraulic
models simulate water flow
through various river
structures to predict the
impact of the flood.
Such
simulations
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as
decision
making aids
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require
high-performance
computing resources
and infrastructure
that normally
aren’t
available locally
on
the appropriate
scale. Grid
computing is a
technology that
enables
the sharing of
computing resources
across different
institutional
boundaries. It
builds on the
technology of the
Internet and the Web
to provide a new
class of computing
infrastructure. It
provides scalable,
secure,
high-performance
mechanisms for
discovering and
negotiating access
to remote resources.
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The CrossGrid
Platform Supports Flood Management
Applications
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The CrossGrid project
addresses the development of a support
system for the
establishment and
operation of a
Grid-based
Virtual Organization for
Flood Forecasting, which will associate
a set of individuals and institutions
(different boxes in data sources
represent different data providers)
involved in flood prevention and
protection.
The system employs
the CrossGrid
platform
of Grid services and
tools
to seamlessly connect
together experts, data and computing
resources needed for quick and
correct flood management decisions.
The main component of the system
will be a highly automated early
warning system, based on
hydro-meteorological (snowmelt)
rainfall-runoff simulations.
Moreover, the system will integrate
advanced communication techniques,
allowing crisis management teams to
consult various experts, before
making any decisions. The experts
will be able to run simulations with
different parameters and analyze the
impact (what-if analysis). The use
of Grid resources is vital
especially in the case of a flood
crisis, when such simulations have
to be performed
under strict time
limitations.
The Institute of Informatics
of the Slovak Academy of
Science, in collaboration
with the Slovak
Meteorological Institute, is
responsible for the
development of the system
within the CrossGrid
project.
CrossGrid, an
EC-funded
R&D project, involves 21
partners and is coordinated
by CYFRONET, the Academic
Computing Center in Krakow,
Poland.
The dissemination and
exploitation of the results
of the CrossGrid project is
coordinated by Algosystems
S. A., an IT company based
in Athens, Greece.
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A grid of
computing resources
for supporting flood management
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In July 1998,
an extreme storm hit
a
part of eastern Slovakia. The resulting
flash floods in small mountainous basins affected 10850
people in 75 villages. The flood took 47 human lives,
756 people remained homeless and 3618 people had to be
evacuated. 2059 houses were flooded and 279 houses were
destroyed. Over 5300 farm animals perished. Total flood
damages were estimated to be more than 20 million Euros.
As a consequence of this and other flood events, the
performance of several current flood-forecasting methods
has been evaluated.
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Floods Devastate
Europe
August 2002
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Floods have killed more than
90 people as water
has
swept
through cities,
towns and villages.
Tens
of thousands have been evacuated from
their
homes and holidaymakers
have been
fleeing from the devastation. Germany,
Slovakia,
the Czech Republic, Austria,
Romania and Russia have all been hit by the
floods.
German officials have
estimated that the damage will cost billions
of Euros.
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