OPEN SOURCE FLOOD MAPPING TOOLS – QGIS, RIVER GIS AND HEC-RAS
OPEN SOURCE FLOOD MAPPING TOOLS – QGIS, RIVER GIS AND HEC-RAS

Summary/Abstract: Maps give a more direct and stronger impression of the spatial distribution of the flood risk than other forms of presentation (verbal description, diagrams). Thus, maps are valuable for presenting and assessing the local flood situation, and they provide information for many applications in flood defence and disaster management. Since the start of geospatial open source “revolution” in the early 2000 (that began with QGIS launching), a transition from commercial software to open source alternatives has been noticed among researchers, professionals, local administrations, etc. This study focuses on using available open source solutions in order to obtain useful information regarding the delineation of flood hazard and flood risk areas. QGIS functions as geographic information system (GIS) software, allowing users to analyze and edit spatial information, in addition to composing and exporting graphical maps. RiverGIS is a QGIS plugin for creating HEC-RAS flow model geometry from spatial data. The functionality is similar to that of HEC-GeoRAS. For data store and spatial operations it needs a PostGIS database. RiverGIS is free/libre software and is released under the GNU General Public License. The methodology used proved efficient considering the time, cost and the quality of the output. The results managed to capture and delimitate the flood. Taking into consideration the cost related issues, this methodology can be applied easily by all the interested parties (local communities, local authorities, scientists, responsible persons with flood mitigation) in the development of local, regional or national flood management plans.

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