No Longer Accepting Registrations
Fathom at Association of State Floodplain Managers (ASFPM) 2024
23 – 27 June, 2024
From June 23 – 27, Fathom’s team of flood experts returned to the annual ASFPM conference to join floodplain managers, disaster mitigation experts and engineering consultancies from across the US to explore the varying challenges faced by the industry.
The conference program featured 81 concurrent sessions for a total of more than 200 presentations, with topics ranging across flood mapping and modeling, mitigation and adaptation strategies, climate change, NFIP, post-disaster recovery, and much more.
As a sponsor, Fathom supported the event in several ways:
1. Exhibiting – thank you to everyone who came to visit us at stand #308!
2. Networking event – thank you to those who joined us for a fabulous evening. It was a great opportunity to meet up with like-minded professionals and raise glass to shared successes and ongoing collaborations.
3. Presentations with partners: (see below)
Watch our sessions from ASFPM 2024
Fathom case studies in Disaster Risk Reduction
Session B – B4: International Floodplain Management
Tuesday, June 25 at 1:45pm – 3.15pm
Case study 1: The 2023 Nova Kakhovka Dam Aack in Ukraine
On June 6th, 2023 The Nova Kakhovka Dam failed in Ukraine. “The dam, 30metres tall, 3.2 km long, holding a volume equal to the Great Salt Lake in the U.S. state of Utah, was built in 1956 on the Dnipro river as part of the Kakhovka hydroelectric power plant. It is not known how many people may have died as a result of the flooding.” “Ukrainian officials estimated about 42,000 people were at risk from flooding, including some 25,000 in Russia-held parts on the right bank of the river. In total, c.80 communities were threatened by flooding.” (Reuters). This event is not only an example of the “residual risk” associated with hydraulic infrastructure but also an example of the cascading effects of disasters.
In this presentation, Gavin will explore the methodology behind the rapid response mapping Fathom provided for the UK Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office to assess flooded areas downstream of Nova Kakhovka dam post-event.
Case study 2: The Mosul Dam, Iraq
The Mosul Dam, built in the early 1980s on the Tigris River, is one of the largest dams in the Arab region. Its foundation on highly soluble gypsum layers poses significant risks of failure. If the dam were to fail, it could create a 45-meter high tsunami wave, reaching Mosul city within 2-4 hours and potentially causing over 500,000 fatalities. Additionally, floodwaters could reach Baghdad within 60-70 hours, inundating the city with up to 8 meters of water and affecting 4-6 million people along the Tigris River floodplain.
In this presentation, Barney will share his experience and insight of working on the Mosul Dam in Iraq, exploring the potential reasons of failure and consequences, should it breach.
Speakers:
- Gavin Lewis, Head of Engineering – Fathom
- Dr. Barney Austin, PE, President and CEO – Aqua Strategies
Back to the future: mapping future condition flood hazard across Texas
Session H – H8: State and Local Mapping Initiatives
Thursday, June 27 at 2:00pm – 3.30pm
In 2021 the Texas Water Development Board (TWDB) completed a first-of-its-kind project to develop a comprehensive cursory floodplain layer for Texas. The innovative project, accomplished in only 6 months, involved Fathom modeling a totally new statewide flood map which supplemented Base Level Engineering maps and local data, becoming a pivotal resource housed within the TWDB’s Flood Planning Hub. The cursory floodplain data aided the Texas Regional Flood Planning Groups and engineering consultancies – guiding their flood planning and mitigation efforts across the state.
Two years later, the TWDB plans to build on the success of the initial phase to understand future flood scenarios across Texas together with future urbanization projections including land use change for all the Regional Flood Planning groups. This has been achieved, with the help of partners from Fathom, AECOM and Aqua strategies. Their goal: to create future-focused flood mapping that projects potential flood risk for Texas in the year 2060.
Collaborating closely with the State Climatologist, AECOM, and Aqua Strategies, Fathom has produced high-resolution future floodplain inundation mapping for Texas, representing fluvial, pluvial and coastal flood perils. Uniquely this project considered future rainfall pattern, sea level rise, changes in land use through future urbanization and the localized impacts of projected land subsidence. The project’s outputs will provide a constant and detailed view of flood risk today and under future climate conditions across the state for a range of local and regional stakeholders.
In this presentation, Reem Zoun and Gavin Lewis will outline a step-by-step approach to constructing a future condition flood hazard map of Texas for the year 2060. They will delve into the reasons driving its creation, along with the challenges encountered when developing a map of such complexity. Their discussion will encompass the detailed process, data sources, and underlying assumptions that influence model results.
Speakers:
- Reem Zoun, Director of Flood Planning – Texas Water Development Board
- Gavin Lewis, Head of Engineering – Fathom
