New data sources for cloudburst risk assessment and management
Urban flooding causes large societal damages and increased climate adaptation measures is needed. The rapid and local character of extreme rain events make them difficult to observe and predict, and to issue warnings for. There is also a lack of data on urban flood damages, mainly because of scarce and non- systematic data collection and management. In this paper, we present the approaches behind the new re-search project SPARC. The overarching aim of the project is to improve urban rain safety by establishing a participatory system for crowdsourcing of data, to support urban flood risk modelling and adaptation of cities to intense rainfall. The project will also investigate flood damage mechanisms on the built environment as well as evaluate and communicate small-scale adaptation measures. Municipal water and waste-water utility organizations and insurance industry representatives will be included in a trans-disciplinary process, also including crowdsourcing in a citizen science approach.