gisgap EU Flood Risk Viewer · Floods Directive scenario explorer

Floods Directive scenario

Probability classes defined in Annex I of Directive 2007/60/EC: high (≈30-yr), medium (≈100-yr) and low (≈300-yr) return periods.

Design water level 4.0 m

Planar flood-surface height above the AOI reference datum (NAP-equivalent).

Climate add-on (SLR / surge) +0.0 m

Added to the design level to stress-test the 3rd-cycle (2022–2027) climate scenario.

Map layers

Hillshade terrain (Copernicus DEM) Inundation depth Road network (OSM) Buildings (OSM) Critical assets

Area of interest

Synthetic lower-delta AOI, 12 × 7.5 km, 50 m grid. Modelled on a Rhine–Meuse polder setting (NL). Terrain, network and assets are procedurally generated from a fixed seed — see provenance.

Inundation map Medium · T=100 yr

Exposure under this scenario

Flooded area

—km²

Share of AOI

—%

Buildings exposed

—

Road length cut

—km

Residents affected

—

Critical assets hit

—

What the Floods Directive requires here

Legal basis

Directive 2007/60/EC on the assessment and management of flood risks, adopted 23 October 2007.

This scenario

Medium-probability event, ~100-year return period. For each scenario the Directive requires both flood extent and flow velocity to be mapped (Art. 6).

Three-phase duty

Preliminary flood risk assessment → flood hazard & risk maps → flood risk management plans. Each is reviewed and updated on a 6-year cycle.

Current cycle

3rd cycle · 2022–2027 Member States are updating maps and management plans, increasingly with climate-change scenarios layered in.

Official maps

Reported maps are aggregated in the EEA Flood Risk Areas Viewer and WISE-Freshwater. This tool is a screening companion, not a substitute.

Open data this connects to

Copernicus DEM (GLO-30) — 30 m global elevation, the open European reference surface for terrain and flood-extent modelling. ESA / Copernicus open licence.
Copernicus Emergency Management Service (CEMS) — rapid flood delineation plus the European Flood Awareness System (EFAS) for continental forecasts.
JRC Global Surface Water — Landsat-derived surface-water occurrence (Pekel et al., 2016, Nature), used to seed permanent water bodies.
EU-Hydro / Copernicus Land Monitoring Service — harmonised river-and-catchment network for hydrological connectivity.

Provenance — what is real vs. synthetic

Component	Class	Notes
Floods Directive scenario definitions & obligations	real	Return-period classes, 6-year cycle and mapping duties are quoted from Directive 2007/60/EC.
Listed open datasets & licences	real	Copernicus DEM, CEMS/EFAS, JRC GSW, EU-Hydro and OSM are real, openly licensed EU-level sources.
AOI terrain (DEM), river channel, road network, buildings, assets	synthetic	Procedurally generated from a fixed Mulberry32 seed so the demo is reproducible offline. Not a real location.
Inundation surface	model	Connectivity-aware planar ("bathtub + flood-fill") model — a first-order screening method, not a hydrodynamic simulation.

Full machine-readable record: data/PROVENANCE.json. Methodology: docs/pipeline.md.