Background

Flood is an extreme environmental event in heavy rainfall areas creating hazard situations to the livelihood of the community. The magnitude and intensity of the flood wave is studied in various ways. As part of water resources management, quantification of the expected flood from a catchment in time and space is a typical practice of hydrologists. Though, flood management requires an integrated approach that involves water resources practitioners, water managers, socio-economists, geographers and environmentalists.

The present course ‘Integrated Flood Management’ is a five day training course to give insights to the participants on how to deal with flood and describe the existing flooding situations with real data examples. The structural and non-structural measures to predict flood will be dealt. The multi-stakeholders’ involvement in Integrated Flood Management will be explained. Legal and institutional aspects of Integrated Flood Management (IFM) together with environmental factors will be given due attention. Similarly participants of the program will visit flood prone areas in the Abay (Blue Nile Basin) of Ethiopia (Ribb and Gumara catchments) and will have an opportunity to appreciate practices being made locally to effectively manage flood coming and generated from highlands.

Therefore, Nile IWRM-Net: Ethiopia Chapter, especially Bahir Dar University, in collaboration with the Nile-IWRM/Cap-Net, is organizing a Regional Course on Integrated Flood Management.

Purpose

The course on IFM deal primarily on integrated approaches to manage flood at local, regional and national level. Current practices made and available knowledge on flooding will enable participants to acquire basic understanding on flooding effects. Similarly participants will make the use of methodologies available to predict flood events in time and space in their local conditions.

Contents of the Course

The draft contents of the course make use of a training module developed by WMO as well as local experience of network members and partner institutions involved in flood management.

For the five days training program emphasis will be given on Integrated Flood Management, together with review of on-the-ground situations. Water resources practices in flood prone areas and the case of Ribb and Gumara catchments will be discussed. Prediction of extreme events (floods) in data scarce regions and the use of hydrologic models to forecast flows in real times will be presented. Similarly legal and institutional arrangements in IFM and stakeholders participation will be discussed. Participants will have an opportunity to visit flood prone areas near Bahir Dar and gain practical experiences on efficient management of flood.

Location, Duration, Timing and Language

The duration of the course will be five working days. Extra two days are required for logistic and housekeeping issues. The training program will be held from June 07 to June 11. The course language is English and venue will be Bahir Dar University, School of Civil and Water Resources Engineering.