DESIGN FLOOD ESTIMATION IN MUNICIPAL AREAS IN SOUTH AFRICA

The requirements for design flood estimation in urban areas are changing largely as a result of the pressure placed on flood prone land by rapidly expanding urban populations. To address the facts that there are currently no design standards for urban flood estimation and risk assessment in South Africa, along with a decline in expertise in this regard at local municipality levels, it was proposed to extend the recent National Flood Studies Programme (NFSP) to focus on urban requirements and to develop a Best Practice Guideline specific to urban applications.
The material contained in the publication is intended to assist Local Authority Officials and Private Practitioners to estimate design flood discharges and compute the associated water surface profiles. The guideline is regarded as a stand-alone document, giving sufficient information to enable the practitioner to estimate design floods in urban catchments. It is important to understand that these calculations are complex with a considerable degree of uncertainty, and hence should be undertaken only by suitably qualified and experienced practitioners.
The document offers different approaches to flood estimation and differentiates between probabilistic methods, deterministic event-based methods, deterministic continuous simulation modelling and empirical methods. Guidance is given for the selection of the appropriate method for design flood determination. It is recognised that the range of uncertainty is great and advises that multiple methods of calculation be used.

1-day capacity building workshops giving an overview of the best practice guidelines will be held at the following venues:

15-Apr-2024 Cape Town – completed
24-Apr-2024 Gqeberha – completed
06-May-2024 George – completed
14-May-2024 Durban – completed
21-May-2024 Johannesburg – completed

Dates for other venues will be displayed as soon as they are available.

These workshops are ECSA CPD-accredited for 1 CPD.
All attendees will receive a printed copy of the full guideline.

For information/queries, phone 031-266 3263 or email technical@imesa.org.za

Sustainable Infrastructure Asset Management (SIAM)

AMPLE Asset Management Program

AMPLE (Asset Management Program Learning Environment) is a web-based tool (knowledge management system) that has an intuitive and user-friendly set of on-line process and practice guidelines, templates and decision support tools that will:

• Simplify the development of consistent Asset Management Strategic Plans (AMSP)
• Provide effective Implementation Guidelines for agencies to assess and drive meaningful improvements in asset management.
• List Asset Management systems from around the world.

The users of this website will be:

• Municipal officials
• Asset managers and operators
• Engineering consultants

IMESA acknowledges the contribution made by GHD’s Global Asset Management Group in giving IMESA access to the AMPLE (Asset Management Program Learning Environment) web enabled suite of products and the associated training programs of which these documents were part.

Download an overview of the AMPLE program:

For information/queries, phone 031-266 3263 or email: technical@imesa.org.za