Client: Government of Italy, Po River Basin Authority

Opportunity

Italy’s largest river, the Po, has become increasingly prone to intense flooding in recent decades, representing a substantial threat to the 17 million people and billions of dollars of property in the region. By the mid 2000’s, regional authorities lacked the tools and capabilities to effectively plan flood control measures and reduce the damaging effects of floodwaters.

Solution

In 2008, Hydro Nova developed and implemented a real-time flood forecasting system for the Po River catchment (about 70,000 km², or 27,000 mi²) so that river managers can simulate flood routing and effects of control structures along the river and the effects of new structures on flood routing. Working with the Po River Basin Authority, Hydro Nova designed the system to integrate hydrologic, hydraulic and hydrodynamic modeling with numerical modeling to simulate flood conditions in real-time.

Outcome

Users take advantage of the customized UI that integrates input data, observed data, models and simulations under the same platform, allowing users to easily display results, reports, create flood maps and analyze data. Since completion, the flood forecasting tool has helped to reduce the potential enormous economic, financial and social losses in the region.