Flood Forecasting: A Global Perspective describes flood forecast systems and operations as they currently exist at national and regional centers around the globe, focusing on the technical aspects of flood forecast systems. This book includes the details of data flow, what data is used, quality control, the hydrologic and hydraulic models used, and the unique problems of each country or system, such as glacial dam failures, ice jams, sparse data, and ephemeral streams and rivers. Each chapter describes the system, including details about its strengths and weaknesses, and covers lessons learned. This helpful resource facilitates sharing knowledge that will lead to improvements of existing systems and provides a valuable reference to those wishing to develop new forecast systems by drawing on best practices.
- Covers global systems allowing readers to see a worldwide perspective with different approaches used by existing flood forecast systems
- Provides historical coverage allowing readers to understand why forecast systems have developed as they have and to see how specific systems have dealt with common problems encountered
- Presents a vision of what appears to be the future of hydrologic forecasting and difficulties facing hydrologic forecasting
- Provides a helpful resource to facilitate improvements to existing systems based on a best practices approach
Thomas E. Adams, III, Hydrologist/AWIPS Software Testing , Fairfield Technologies, Inc., Silver Spring, MD, USA
Visiting Scientist, NOAA/NWS National Water Center in Tuscaloosa, AL, USA
Thomas E. Adams, III, has twenty years of real-time operational hydrologic forecasting experience at the NOAA/National Weather Service (NWS), Ohio River Forecast Center (OHRFC), including model parameter estimation, hydrologic and hydraulic modeling and model calibration. His experience includes development and implementation of the Ohio River Community HEC-RAS Model, operational probabilistic/ensemble hydrologic forecasting, precipitation estimation and analysis, land surface/atmosphere interaction, and impact of global climate change on water resources.
He is currently involved with Advanced Weather Interactive Processing System (AWIPS) software development and testing for the NWS and served as flash flood forecasting expert in Beijing, China. He is a member of the American Geophysical Union, American Meteorological Society, American Society of Civil Engineers, and the Soil Science Society of America.