Floods in Solingen, Germany (2021-08-16)

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Activation date: 2021-08-16 <br>
Event type: Flood <br>
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Activation reason: <br>
The CEMS Risk and Recovery Standard has been activated for a retrospective assessment of the flood event that took place in Solingen (North Rhine Westphalia area, Germany). A series of storm events throughout June and July 2021 left the ground saturated, followed by heavy rainfalls from the 12th July and particularly on the 14th July 2021. A severe flood event occurred over the next few days along the Moselle, Rhine and Ruhr rivers. The Germany’s weather service Deutscher Wetterdienst (DWD) reported that at least 7 locations recorded more than 150 mm of rain in 72 hours to 15th July 2021. The period considered for the analysis is between the 13th July and the 16th July 2021.Proposed solution and resultsA hydraulic modelling approach has been adopted to provide the temporal analysis of the occurred flood event (P06 product) in terms of maximum flood extent, maximum water depth, and flood temporal evolution estimated during the period 13th July 2021 – 16th July 2021. The model has been calibrated using two P04-Flood delineation products depicting the flood footprint extracted from Sentinel-1 acquisitions taken on the 15th July (517 ha) and the 16th July 2021 (269 ha)The maximum flood extent retrieved from the hydraulic modelling is 1340 ha. The water depth range has been estimated between 0.25 m and 1.7 m (0.45 m on average)Figure 1 : P06 Temporal analyses of the occurred flood event Figure 2 : Comparison between the flood extent and depth provided by the P04 product (top) and the flood extent (middle) derived from the hydraulic modelling (P06 product) on the peak date, i.e. on 15.07.2021. (Bottom) Maximum flood extent and depth provided by the P06 product <br>
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