European Flood Alert System
Delivering medium- and long-term flood forecasts to EU Member States and Accession countries and the European Commission

The European Flood Alert System (EFAS) is a probabilistic flood forecasting system that has been developed and tested since 2003 and is running experimentally on a daily 24/7 basis at the JRC's Institute for Environment and Sustainability (IES) in Ispra (Italy) since 2005. The system was launched by the European Commission following the devastating Elbe and Danube floods in 2002 in order to increase preparedness for major river floods in Europe. 

Flood portal

EFAS closely works with, and for, the benefit of the Members States (MS). It is designed as an early warning system at a pan-European scale to provide flood warnings more than 2 days before a flood, allowing MS and the Commission to be better prepared for potential flood crises, a recent example being the flood in Eastern Europe, in May 2010.

The large river floods have shown that early information allows for more efficient implementation of crisis management plans in order to mitigate the flood impact. For example, EFAS alerts can provide national agencies with more time to plan necessary emergency actions, such as, organising controlled releases of water from upstream reservoirs, activating temporary retention basins to reduce flood volumes and peaks or evacuating people from high-risk areas. EFAS may also support the European Commission and International Aid organisations to better prepare and coordinate their activities within Europe.

Technically, EFAS is based on the hydrological rainfall-runoff-routing model LISFLOOD that has been designed at the JRC specifically to simulate hydrological processes in large river basins. Currently, EFAS incorporates 120 different weather forecasts daily from different weather services to estimate the probability of upcoming floods across Europe. It automatically processes and combines the data about weather and river conditions from more than 1,000 ground stations with satellite information. In the case that a high probability of flooding is forecasted in the next 3-10 days, partner organisations are contacted with detailed information from the EFAS system.

EFAS alert levels

The EFAS network consists of about 29 National and Regional hydrological authorities responsible for trans-national river basins across Europe. In 70-80% of the cases early EFAS alerts are later confirmed to be ‘correct’ – i.e. in the right place, time, and magnitude.

However, the capability of EFAS is not limited to just forecasting. It is a tool that can be used in large and transnational catchments for a variety of applications other than flood forecasting, for example monitoring the hydrological situation across Europe, and assessing the effects of river regulation measures, land-use change and climate change.

EFAS is envisaged to run in a fully operational mode by the beginning of 2012. The JRC will further develop the system as a model for other continents, e.g., Africa and on global scale. Furthermore, feasibility studies to apply system methodologies for flashfloods are also beeing tested.

Publications

• Alfieri L, Smith P, Thielen Del Pozo J, Beven K. (2011).  A staggered approach to flash flood forecasting - case study in the Cévennes region. Advances in Geosciences 29. p. 13-20. JRC59780.
• Bogner K, Pappenberger F.  (2011). Multiscale Error Analysis, Correction and Predictive Uncertainty Estimation in a Flood Forecasting System. WATER RESOURCES RESEARCH 47 (W07524);  p. 24. JRC56973.
• Burek P, Thielen Del Pozo J, Thiemig V, De Roo A. (2011). Das Europäische Hochwasser-Frühwarnsystem (EFAS). Korrespondenz Wasserwirtschaft 4/11; 2011. p. 193-199. JRC61562.
• Pappenberger F, Bogner K, Wetterhall F, Yi H, Cloke H, Thielen Del Pozo J.(2011). Forecast convergence score: a forecaster`s approach to analysing hydro-meteorological forecast systems. Advances in Geosciences 29; 2011. p. 27-32. JRC59328.
• Thiemig V, Burek P, Thielen Del Pozo J, De Roo A. (2011). Hochwasservorhersage in Afrika: Kann die Methode des Europäischen Hochwasser-Frühwarnsystems auf Afrikanische Einzugsgebiete Übertragen Werden. Korrespondenz Wasserwirtschaft 4; p. 200-205. JRC61442
• Barredo, J.I., Engelen, G. (2010). Land use scenario modelling for flood risk mitigation. Sustainability, 2, 1327-1344.
• Ramos M-.-H., Mathevet T., Thielen J., Pappenberger F. (2010). Communicating uncertainty in hydro-meteorological forecasts: mission impossible? Meteorological Applications, Volume 17, Issue 2(p 223-235).
• Van der Knijff J.M., J. Younis and A.P.J. De Roo (2010). LISFLOOD: a GIS-based distributed model for river-basin scale water balance and flood simulation. International Journal of Geographical Information Science, Vol. 24, No.2, 189-212.

Contact Info:

Ad de Roo - Tel: +39-0332-786240 E-mail: ad.de-roo(at)jrc.ec.europa.eu