Preliminary flood hazard assessment for monuments in urbanized areas

Iliopoulou T., Koutsoyiannis D. (2021). Preliminary flood hazard assessment for monuments in urbanized areas. in Proceedings of the 4th International Conference on Protection of Historical Constructions (PROHITECH 2020), 25-27 October, 2021, Athens, Greece.

Abstract | Ancient monuments located in urbanized areas are subject to numerous short- and long-term environmental hazards with flooding being among the most critical ones. Flood hazard in the complex urban environment is subject to large spatial and temporal variability, and thus requires location-specific risk assessment and mitigation. We devise a methodological scheme for preliminary assessing flood hazard in urbanized regions ―at the monument’s scale, by coupling rainfall data from a local raingauge with a 2D hydraulic model of the monument’s sub-basin. Return periods of flood depths based on rainfall extremes are estimated using a novel statistical methodology (k-moments). As a case study, we perform a pilot assessment of the flood hazard in the Roman Agora, a major archaeological site of Greece located in the center of Athens. The scheme will be incorporated in a real-time monitoring platform for risk assessment in monuments (ARCHYTAS).