Kohn Colloquium || Witold F. Krajewski, Professor, Civil & Environmental Engineering, Iowa Flood Center, The University of Iowa

Oct 02, 2015
219 Jessup Hall

Speaker:  Witold F. Krajewski, Professor, Civil & Environmental Engineering, Iowa Flood Center, The University of Iowa

Topic:  Iowa Flood Center Models for Predicting Flood Occurrence and Frequency

Refreshments will be provided by the Geography department at 3:00 pm in the third floor GSS atrium.

 

ABSTRACT / BIO

The speaker will introduce the research activities of the Iowa Flood Center.  In particular, he will describe rainfall-runoff models used in the IFC’s state-wide real-time flood forecasting system.  The system is driven by radar-rainfall observed by the national network of weather radars.  It uses information on topography, land use, land cover and soil types.  The forecasts are updated every 15 minutes and the forecasts lead time extends to five days into the future.  The author will also discuss the main sources of uncertainty involved in the model performance assessment.  Regarding flood frequency estimation the author will outline a framework for connecting statistics and physics based approaches to regionalization.  He will illustrate the issues involved with simulation based examples.

Dr. Witold F. Krajewski is the Rose and Joseph Summers Chair of Water Resources Engineering at the University of Iowa.  He is a Professor in the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering and Research Engineer at IIHR—Hydroscience & Engineering.  In 2009, he was appointed Director of the Iowa Flood Center. Dr. Krajewski’s scientific interests concern measuring, modeling, and forecasting precipitation using radar and satellite remote sensing.  His current research focuses on understanding the genesis of floods through field experimentation and modeling, and the quantification of uncertainty in hydrologic prediction at a range of temporal and spatial scales.