Understanding floods

Flooding occurs when excess water from high rainfall events cannot be absorbed into the landscape. This may be due to extreme rainfall events, (as with cyclones), changes in land cover and vegetation across the river catchment, and saturation of soils and aquifers.

In an attempt to predict potential flood events, and thus mitigate their impacts, hydrometeorological models are used to estimate where excess water is likely to flow.  As our understanding of meteorological events and hydrological processes improves, our ability to predict flooding improves, but this is still an imperfect science.

As a result of this still imperfect science of flood estimation and prediction, providing assistance to communities in flood preparedness is vital. Developing techniques to reduce flood impacts is an important component in flood research, as is the development of adaptive approaches to flood engineering solutions.

Ten years of Australian floods