Australian Cities at Risk of Flash Flooding
Published on by Water Network Research, Official research team of The Water Network in Academic
Australian cities are at an increased risk of experiencing flash flooding as temperatures warm, researchers from the University of New South Wales (UNSW) have found
Conclusions published in the journal Nature Geoscience suggest peak downpours during storms are intensifying at warmer temperatures, leading to greater risk of flash flooding in urban centres.
The study's authors have pointed to recent extreme weather events in Sydney and Queensland as examples of what they have documented.
They are urging local councils to redesign sewerage and road infrastructure as a result.
"Unless you fix the sewers and the storm drainage network you will have problems," study co-author Ashish Sharma said.
"If you're having bigger floods coming along in the future, the existing infrastructure cannot handle it. It will spill over."
Civil engineers from the UNSW analysed 30 years of weather records from 79 locations across Australia.
They looked at the 500 largest storms by rainfall volume from each of these locations and measured the corresponding near-surface temperature at the time of the storm.
The research found that the most intense downpours of rain are getting more extreme at warmer temperatures, dumping larger volumes of water over less time, leading to more flash floods.
CSIRO scientist Kevin Hennessy said if greenhouse gases increased at their current rate, Australia would experience warming of about 2.5 to 5 degrees Celsius by the end of the century.
"We know the world is warming. We know that there have been changes in sea level rises and extreme weather events. And we expect more of the same in the future."
Professor Sharma said an increase of 5 degrees would cause flood peaks to rise by an average of 5 to 20 per cent for a typical medium-sized catchment.
He said the results showed how important it was for councils to think about redesigning sewerage and road infrastructure and even updating guidelines about where it is safe to build homes.
Source: ABC
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