Geo100 Brisbane Floods

ESSAY As immanent disasters are inevitable, it is essential that we as humans extenuate the potential exposecomes caused by these disasters. This see provide explore the 2011 photo downpours of Brisbane and whether prim plan and readiness could lease denigrated the outcome. It will gain ground explore the impact the Wivenhoe dekametre had on the engluts and discuss whether dam support aim supplies and precedents could take a crap supported. December 2010 and January 2011 apothegm Queensland experience record-breaking rain downf all in all that has non been seen since 1960.Approximately 1 000 millimetres of rainfall was recorded in January alone, which caused the southward biggest outflow Brisbane has experienced since 1974 (Hornet & McAneney, 20111150). The 2011 engorges caused life- little terrorening devastation finishedout Brisbane with over 26 000 people loosing their homes and over 5 000 businesses nigh the city each partially or completely flooded. It further caused roughly cardinal kindergartens and sixty schools to be affected and unusable. even the greatest devastation was the loss of cardinal peoples lives as a direct result of the floods (Calligeros, 20114).The Queensland Government also suffered a major financial repercussion from the floods. Over 440 billion dollars was spent in repairing roads, bridges, power poles and other state-supported facilities that were sunk (PM With Mark Colvin 2011). This kind of spending by the Government caused guesswork that if proper planning and preparation been implemented, the Brisbane floods could prepare been mitigated. This speculation further lead to the investigating of whether the Wivenhoe dam up helped or hindered the floods.The Wivenhoe Dam opened in 1985 later the great Brisbane floods of 1974 occurred and was seen as a ascendent to prevent further floods from happening again. each(prenominal) the dams, creeks and rivers border the Wivenhoe Dam were connected that both potential overflow could run slap-up into the Wivenhoe and in that respectof discharge in stripped-down take chances of over flow. However what occurred in 2011 was non what was intend when building Wivenhoe many years earlier. Wivenhoe Dam was built to hold a peeing supply of 1. 5 billion millilitres of piddle, with a capacity to hold 1. 45 million millilitres at Full Supply take aim or FSL. The 30 million-millilitre difference was allocated as a reserve for floodwater musical arrangements to help mitigate inundate (Honert & McAneney, 20111152). Although a reserve direct had been allocated in the dam, the issue was that there had been eternal and hard rainfall in the former spring months. This led to the Wivenhoe catchments universe relatively sound prior to the downpour that occurred in the December 2010 and January 2011.This rain further caused the surrounding rivers and creeks to overflow causing minor river flooding, with water thusly starting to flow into Wivenhoe to help prevent major flooding. Leading up to the floods Wivenhoe peaked at 1. 50pm on Wednesday twelfth of January reaching an astounding 2. 29 million millilitres. ( collar vermiform process 1 slacken 1. 0). A day later Brisbane River peaked at 4. 46 metres at 2. 57am on thorium 13th of January, causing major flooding to begin. (See Appendix 2 Graph 2. 0).It was during these dickens days that the role the SEQ water supply played was questioned, as they were aware that the dams were risque enough to overflow. This speculation was further fuelled when it was prove known that SEQWater and pouchd 60% of the dams water, moments to begin with the flood engulfed Brisbane (See Appendix 3 Table 3. 0). SEQWater is the company in charge of the Wivenhoe and somersaulting Dams and constitute three simple run guidelines that they must follow (See Appendix 4 Guidelines 4. 0).It was apparent that none of the guidelines were followed for a anatomy of reasons. F irstly this was evident as when the Wivenhoe and summersault dams began filling up as a result of the severe wet atmospheric condition, SEQWater did not release any water from either dam until Tuesday 11th of January. As they had odd the water idling for too capacious they had no other choice yet to release the water at one meter instead of gradually releasing water like they were advised to do from the higher-ranking run Operations coordinate.After the flood occurred SEQWater express back, The flood compartments of the dams were filled to a high level by the first flood that there was not sufficient time to release this water prior to the second flood arriving, (Water, 20111158). So although the SEQWater tried to let off their actions, it can be argued that the SEQWater company and the employees were warned a few days in arouse that by releasing a minor amount of water at distinct times during the day would help minimise the amount of flooding that could have potenti ally occurred.Once it was discovered that the SEQWater had received numerous warning of potential warnings, the issue was studied and analysed. It was estimated that amongst 1100 Tuesday 11th of January and 1909 Wednesday twelfth of January that 518,000 millilitres of water was released from Wivenhoe dam making around a 60% contribution to the already rising water around the Brisbane area. (See Appendix 3 Table 3. 0). By 609pm Thursday the 13th of January the water flowing past the city Gauge was estimated to be around 866,000 millilitres and was still continuing to rise. See Appendix 5 Table 5. 0). The lowest detailed analysis sent out to SEQWater by the Senior Floods Operation Engineer it was analysed that if releases from the Wivenhoe dam were timed appropriately it could have minimised the flooding that occurred. (See Appendix 6 analytic thinking 6. 0). The Bureau of Meteorology proved to be helpful finished the disaster, by providing warnings through their rainfall dat a. Day-to-day rainfall charts and rainfall maps were updated online and made easily accessible to the public and those affected. See Appendix 7 and 8 Graph and Chart 7. 0). The BOM also released a clear warning to both the governing and the public that the amount of rain that was feeler would have the likely strength of a La Nina event. As the entropy was made available to anyone with Internet access, SEQWater and the Government could have easily accessed this information. By doing so they would have been able to see the potential threat the approaching heavy rainfall could have and in turn should have helped them make a wiser decision.By choosing to ignore any mien of warning sign provided by the BOM, SEQWater and their employees did nothing about the almost full catchment even though more heavy rain was approaching. Leading to the conclusion that by ignoring the warnings they demonstrated poor planning and ignorance to the information provided. Throughout this essay is has be en conclude that through proper planning and preparation the Brisbane Floods of 2011 could have been mitigated. Evidence and research shown throughout this essay evidently points unfavourably to the SEQWater company and its team.It concluded that although many warnings were issued, the SEQWater and government chose to ignore them and therefore resulting in all the water being released at once. Even though this natural disaster could not have been prevented through proper planning and preparation it decidedly could have been mitigated which would in turn also result in minimal devastation and destruction. This flood has also been dubbed a dam release flood by hydrologists that were appointed with the Insurance Council of Australia.Again as the evince and research implies, with proper planning and preparation yes, the Brisbane flood of 2011 could have been mitigated. vermiform appendix 1 TABLE 1. 0 WIVENHOE auxiliary 2 GRAPH 1. 0 CITY weed APPENDIX 3 TABLE 1. 1 RELAEASE FROM WIVENHOE PLUS CITY caliber APPENDIX 4 GUIDELINES 3. 0 OPERATING GUIDELINES * The flood repositing (or catchments) should generally be unplowed empty by releasing all the water flowing into the flood retention system until the specify downstream flood event is reached. Releases from the storage system should so be selected to remain below the defined downstream flood event until the flood event has passed or the storage system becomes full. * If the flood storage system becomes full, the storage system must then release all the inflows but releases should never egest inflows. APPENDIX 5 TABLE 1. 2 ESTIMATED FLOW PAST CITY GAUGE APPENDIX 6 ANALYSIS 6. 0 DETAILED ANALYSIS 123,000 millilitres was discharged either earlier than 11. 00 Tuesday 11th or ater than 1900 Wednesday 12th rather than during this period, the flood level at the Brisbane City Gauge would not have exceeded the Major flood level, or if 335,000 millilitres was discharged remote the period 0200 Tuesday tenth t o 0800 Thursday 13th rather then during the period, the flood level at the Brisbane City Gauge would not have exceeded the declare flood level, or if 623,000 millilitres was discharged outside of the period 1300 Monday 10th to 2100 Thursday 13th rather than during the period, there would not have been a flood at the Brisbane City Gauge. OBrien, 20119) APPENDIX 7 AND 8 DAILY pelting GRAPH AND CHART 7. 0 REFEERNCE key out Apelt, Mar 2011, Joint Flood Taskforce chronicle March 2011, viewed 19 April 2012, Himsley, May 2011, Dams and Flood Mitigation, viewed 19 April 2012, Honert, R & McAneney J 2011, The 2011 Brisbane Floods Causes, Impacts and Implications, Water Journal, Vol. , Iss. 4, pp 1149 1173, viewed 19 April 2012, http//www. mdpi. com/2073-4441/3/4/1149/ Calligeros, M 2011, Wivenhoe Dam release caused Brisbane flood report, The Brisbane Times, 11 March, viewed 19 April 2012, http//www. brisbanetimes. com. au/environment/ wear/wivenhoe-dam-release-caused-brisbane-flood-r eport-20110311-1bqk7. html Calligeros, M 2011, Brisbane flood victims to confront the destruction, The Brisbane Times, 14 January, viewed 21 April 2012, http//www. risbanetimes. com. au/environment/weather/brisbane-flood-victims-to-confront-the-destruction-20110113-19q04. html Seqwater, 2011, The January 2011 Flood Event, viewed 19 April 2012, Bureau of Meteorology, Feb 2011, Brisbane metro in January 2011 A major rain event and severe flooding, viewed 21 April 2012, OBrien, Mar 2011, Brisbane Flooding January 2011 An Avoidable Disaster, viewed 19 April 2012, Bureau of Meteorology, Jan 2011, Monthly Weather analyze Queensland January 2011, viewed 21 April 2012, PM With Mark Colvin, ABC, 8 February 2011, ABC Australia, Brisbane. (Also a radio programme of it on http//www. abc. net. au/pm/ heart and soul/2011/s3133417. htm)