Floodplain Management

HARC Specialist Services

Flood studies and flood modelling
Floodplain planning & management
Flood risk and emergency management
Flood impacts for infrastructure design
Operational flood intelligence
Flood forecasting
Flood related development assessments & planning referrals
Expert advice and response planning at incident control centres during flood events
Provision of expert witness services

Key Projects

Derivation of IFDs for South East Queensland incorporating climate change

Queensland

Linear Infrastructure Flood Risk - Innovative Flood Study for the Inland Freight Route, Queensland

Queensland

Complex Flood Modelling - Joint Probability Assessment of Local and Catchment Flooding, Hutt River, NZ

New Zealand

Flood intelligence services to support emergency response during the June 2021 Gippsland Floods

Victoria

Flood Risk Assessment for Fishermans Bend

Victoria

Caves Creek Baseline Hydrology

Western Australia

Meet our Experts

Key Services

As climate change and extreme weather events continue to challenge our communities, HARC partners with emergency services, state and local governments and other agencies to help manage flood risk and build community resilience.

We provide trusted expertise in flood modelling, risk assessment, flood mitigation and management options, planning and environmental considerations and community engagement.

Our team has leading technical expertise in the various disciplines that are required for floodplain management including engineering, hydrology, environmental science, land-use planning, and extensive practical experience in flood risk management. We specialize in the analysis of complex flood issues, including consideration of climate change, spatial and temporal variability and joint probability of extreme events. HARC provides flood forecasting to a range of clients for operational decision making

We partner with our clients to make informed decisions to manage both existing and future flood risk and provide guidance on policy implementation through preparing management plans (and background research studies) under the flood risk management process. We assist in the implementation of these plans to reduce flood risk to the community through a range of property, flood and response modification measures. These plans range from individually tailored response at individual sites, through to catchment wide Municipal Flood Emergency Plans. We provide specialist in-person support to emergency services, such as the SES, during flood emergencies as part of emergency management teams.

Publications

Floodplain Management

Wang, H., Mannix, R., Stephens, D. (2023)
Benchmarking warning timelines with the use of evacuation models.
Floodplain Management Australia, National Conference, Sydney, 23-26 May.

Smith, A., Stagg, M. (2023)
Assessing Climate Change Risk in Rural and Urban Irrigation Drainage Systems.
Floodplain Management Australia, National Conference, Sydney, 23-26 May.

Craig, T., Northfield, A. (2022)
The impact of spatial variability on flood response in small catchments.
Australian Hydrology and Water Resources Symposium, 2022, Brisbane, 30 Nov.-1 Dec.

Scorah, M., Lang, S., Nathan, R., Acharya, S. (2022)
Quantifying errors in areal rainfall estimates due to interpolation in poorly gauged regions.
Australian Hydrology and Water Resources Symposium, 2022, Brisbane, 30 Nov.-1 Dec.

Northfield, A., Cawood, M., Wang, H. (2021).
Testing the effectiveness of your warning system without having a flood
Australian Journal of Emergency Management, January 2021 edition

Hill, P., Hughes, E., Jayasinghe, R., Ladson, T., Lett, R., Nathan, R., Stephens, D. (2020).
Benchmarking ARR2019 for Victoria.
Floodplain Management Australia – Digital National Conference, 2020, 20th-21st May, Australia.

Wang, H., & Northfield, A. (2019).
A method to better assess the effectiveness of flood warnings.
Floodplain Management Australia National Conference, Canberra, 14th-17th May 2019, 1–8.

Stephens, D. (2019).

Towards Consistency in Unit Cost Rates for Economic Consequences.

2019 ANCOLD Conference. Auckland, 10th-11th October, 2019, 1–11.

Cawood, M., Lang, S., & Hill, P. (2018).
Estimating the life safety benefits associated with flood warning systems.
Floodplain Management Association National Conference, Gold Coast 29th May-1st June, 2018, 1–9.

Stephens, D., Northfield, A., & Hill, P. (2018).
Flood studies for large catchments: the importance of rainfall spatial variability.
Floodplain Management Australia National Conference. Gold Coast, May 29th-June 1st, 2018.

Stephens, D., Nathan, R., Smith, M. and Syme, B. (2017).
Impact on ensemble and joint probability techniques on design flood levels.
2017 Floodplain Management Australia National Conference. Newcastle, 17-19 May 2017

Kavanagh, C., Lang, S., Hill, P.I. (2017).
Using simulation modelling to optimise effectiveness of warning systems for flooding.
2017 Floodplain Management Australia National Conference. Newcastle, 17-19 May 2017

Flood Hydrology

Azhar, F., Pauwels, V.R.N., Bui, H.H. (2023)
Confirmation of vehicle stability criteria through a combination of smoothed particle hydrodynamics and laboratory measurements.
Journal of Flood Risk Management, June 2023.

Jordan, P., Acharya, S., Close, A., Shen, A., Hughes, E., Stephens, D. (2022)
Hydrological and hydraulic modelling of design floods for the Menindee Lakes.
Australian Hydrology and Water Resources Symposium, 2022, Brisbane, 30 Nov.-1 Dec.

Acharya, S. et. al. (2022).
Temporal disaggregation of daily rainfall measurements using regional reanalysis for hydrological applications.
Journal of Hydrology 2022.

Lang, S., Nathan, R., Scorah, M., Zhang, A. (2021).
Estimates of spatial coherence and dependence for extreme storms in the tropical and coastal regions of Australia.
Australian Hydrology and Water Resources Symposium 2021, 31 August – 1 September, Digital, Australia.

Northfield, A., Craig, T., Hill, P. (2021).
Regional Flood Frequency Estimation in Arid Australia.
Australian Hydrology and Water Resources Symposium 2021, 31 August – 1 September, Digital, Australia.

Scorah, M., Nathan, R., Lang, S. (2021).
Incorporating stochastic variation of storm space time pattern centering in a Monte Carlo hydrological model.
Australian Hydrology and Water Resources Symposium 2021, 31 August – 1 September, Digital, Australia.

Hill, P., Nathan, R., Stephens, D., Scorah, M., (2019).
Australian experience with application of Monte Carlo approach to extreme flood estimation.
ICOLD 86th Annual Meeting and Symposium, Toronto, 2019.

Lang, S., Nathan, R., Shea, D. O., Scorah, M., Zhang, J., Kuczera, G., & Schaefer, M. (2019).
Estimating Extreme Rainfall Probabilities for Large Catchments in Northern Australia.
2019 ANCOLD Conference. Auckland, 10th-11th October, 2019.

Stephens, D., Scorah, M., Liu, B., & Nathan, R. (2018).
A review of recent enhancements to RORB: a tool for promoting application of ARR 2016.
39th Australian Hydrology and Water Resources Symposium. Melbourne, 3rd-6th December, 2018.

O’Shea, D., Nathan, R., & Hill, P. (2018).
Another step in the difficult journey to regionalise a probability based loss model.
39th Australian Hydrology and Water Resources Symposium. Melbourne, 3rd-6th December 2018.

Lang, S., Zhang, J., Scorah, M., Nathan, R., & Pearse, M. (2018).
Characterising the location and rarity of annual maxima rainfall in the GTSM-R coastal zone.
39th Australian Hydrology and Water Resources Symposium. Melbourne, 3rd-6th December, 2018.

Craig, T., Northfield, A., & Stephens, D. (2018).
The application of space-time patterns to the verification of a large catchment in northern Victoria.
39th Australian Hydrology and Water Resources Symposium. Melbourne, 3rd-6th December, 2018.

Loveridge, M., Rahman, A., Hill, P.I.(2016).
Applicability of a physically based soil water model (SWMOD) in design flood estimation in eastern Australia.
Hydrology Research Journal

Nathan, R., Jordan, P., Scorah, M., Lang, S., Kuczera, G., Schaefer, M., Weinmann, E.,(2016).
Estimating the exceedance probability of extreme rainfalls up to the probable maximum precipitation.
Journal of Hydrology

Hill, P.I., Nathan, R.J., Zhang, J. (2016).
Application of AWRA-L gridded soil moisture data for flood estimation.
37^th Australian Hydrology and Water Resources Symposium. 28 Nov – 2 December, Queenstown, New Zealand

Scorah, M., Hill, P.I., Lang, S.M., Nathan, R.J. (2016).
Addressing embedded bursts in design storms for flood hydrology.
37^th Australian Hydrology and Water Resources Symposium. 28 Nov – 2 December Queenstown New Zealand.

Nathan, R., Stephens, D.A., Smith, M., Jordan, P.W., Scorah, M., Shepherd, D., Hill, P.I., Syme, B. (2016).
Impact of Natural Variability on Design Flood Flows and Levels.
37^th Australian Hydrology and Water Resources Symposium. 28 Nov – 2 December Queenstown New Zealand

Stephens, D.A., Nathan, R., Hill, P.I., Scorah, M. (2016).
Incorporation of snowmelt into joint probability event based rainfall-runoff modelling.
37^th Australian Hydrology and Water Resources Symposium. 28 Nov – 2 December Queenstown New Zealand

Stephens, D.A., Nathan, R., Scorah, M, Hill, P.I. (2016).
Overview of the capabilities of RORBwin: an enabling tool for application of ARR2016.
37^th Australian Hydrology and Water Resources Symposium. 28 Nov – 2 December Queenstown New Zealand

Stephens, D.A., Hill, P.I., Rodgers, S., Grace, D. and Nathan, R. (2016).
Application of rainfall runoff modelling to large catchments: flood estimates for the Swan-Avon River.
37^th Australian Hydrology and Water Resources Symposium. 28 Nov – 2 December Queenstown New Zealand

Hill, P.I., Graszkiewicz, Z., Loveridge, M., Nathan, R.J., Scorah, M. (2015).
Analysis of loss values for Australian rural catchments to underpin ARR guidance.
Hydrology and Water Resources Symposium, 9-10 December 2015, Hobart, Australia.

Lang, S.M., Hill, P.I., Scorah, M., Stephens, D.A. (2015).
Defining and calculating continuing loss for flood estimation.
Hydrology and Water Resources Symposium, 9-10 December 2015, Hobart, Australia.

Jordan, P., Nathan, R. & Seed, A. (2015).
Application of spatial and space-time patterns of design rainfall to design flood estimation.
Proceedings of the 36^th Hydrology and Water Resources Symposium, 2015, Engineers Australia, Hobart, Australia.

Jordan, P., Nathan, R., Weeks, W., Waskiw, P., Herron, A., Cetin, L., Rogencamp, G., Stephens, C. & Russell, C. (2015).
Estimation of flood risk for linear transport infrastructure using continuous simulation modelling.
Proceedings of the 36^th Hydrology and Water Resources Symposium, 2015, Engineers Australia, Hobart, Australia.