FLOOD CONTROL: THE ROLE OF FLOOD

WARNING SYSTEMS IN THE

METROPOLITAN REGION OF SO PAULO
B. P. F. Braga, O. Massambani, J. C. F. Palos, M. T. L. Barros,
A. Pisani, P. T. Nakayama, M. Barreto. and J. Boani
Introduction
Urban population is expected to grow in such a way that by the end of this century,
more than 70 percent of the world population will be living in urban areas. In some
countries the situation has already reached levels even more critical than that
aforementioned, as in Brazil, for example, where 7 percent of its !0 million
inhabitants dwell in urban areas. "his increasing population and subse#uent larger
entropy in the urban ecosystem will re#uire planners to reconsider present practices
related to urban drainage. "he traditional concept of fast disposal of undesirable surplus
surface water involves ever increasing costs that most fre#uently, less developed
countries are not able to finance, even with the help of international funding agencies.
"he so$called non$structural flood control measures %e.g. relocation, flood insurance,
flood warning& are becoming more and more popular because of their lower costs when
compared with the traditional structural control measures %canals, levees, reservoirs,
bypasses, etc.&. In particular flood warning can be used in both ways' as a non$structural
mitigation measure or as a complement to structural measures in order to allow a lower
return period in the design of the hydraulic structures.
(lood warning systems in less developed countries act also as a public health safeguard.
)arge metropolitan regions in those countries are located in humid tropical climates
where higher ambient temperatures facilitate the faster growth of bacteria and other
waterborne organisms. *ormally in these regions wastewater is directly discharged into
the watercourses. In the event of a flood if the population is not informed in advance,
people may get in contact with contaminated water that flows in the urban cree+s and
rivers.
"he metropolitan region of ,-o .aulo has long being sub/ected to flooding. In particular
in the summer of !071 a large rainfall event threatened the population of the west part
of the region with the possibility of failure of 2uarapiranga 3am. "his situation called
the attention of the city authorities for the lac+ of real time hydrologic information in
the area. Immediately after a commission was established to propose a system that
would warn people with the due anticipation avoiding in this way more complex
situations during the flood season. "his paper presents the different development stages
of this system from the mid 704s to present days where satellites and weather radars
have been coupled to the telemetring ground networ+ to improve hydrologic
forecasting.
SO PAULO METROPOLITAN REGION
,-o .aulo 5etropolitan 6egion is the largest urban conurbation in ,outh 7merica and
the largest industrial complex of )atin 7merica. Its !1 million inhabitants spread over
an area of approximately 8,000 +m9, having 00 +m9 of urbanized area, which is
entirely comprised within the Upper "iete river basin, shown in (igure !. "he upper
"iete 6iver basin at :dgard de ,ouza dam has a drainage area of approximately ;,000
+m9. 2entle slopes %of the order of 0.!7 m<+m& characterize a meandering "iete river.
(rom its headwaters till :dgard de ,ouza dam the "iete flows through !1! +m, having
as its main tributaries the "amanduatei and the .inheiros rivers. "he "iete 6iver basin is
being urbanized at a very high rate upstream of .enha dam and is almost completly
urbanized downstream of this dam. (lood hydrographs for the upstream basin show a
slow rising limb with moderate pea+s, typical of rural areas, while downstream of that
dam, flood hydrographs are typically urban. 3ue to the lac+ of ade#uate wastewater
treatment, these urban watercourses are highly polluted, conveying all sorts of
municipal and industrial wastes imposing thus a serious threat to human health and so,
complicating even more the usual flooding problems.
:ver since the beginning of the century a number of hydraulic structures have been
constructed in the basin. 5ost of these were built by a private power generating
company, formerly =anadian owned, but presently owned by the government of the
,tate of ,-o .aulo.
(ig.!. "he Upper "iet> 6iver Basin and the "elemetry *etwor+
"o generate power, a series of dams, reservoirs and pumping stations were built so as to
divert the flow of both "iete and .inheiros rivers by impounding water at :dgard de
,ouza and pumping it bac+ to Billings reservoir through two pumping stations, namely
"raic-o and .edreira, as shown in (igure 9. (rom Billings reservoir, water is transferred
to .ears reservoir from which electricity is generated at =ubit power plant at sea level,
with a hydraulic head of 7!0 m. "his large amount of electric power available at the
demand area allowed the growing of economic activities at an exceptional high rate.
(ig. 9 $ ?ydropower 3evelopment ,cheme of the Upper "iet> 6iver Basin
(igure @ shows the expansion of the urban area from the beginning of this century. In
"able ! it is shown the evolution of the population of the region which /umped from a
medium size city %@00,000 inhabitants& in !00 to a megalopolis of !1 million
inhabitants in !00. Unfortunately, urban infrastructure did not improve at the same rate
as population and urbanization of the region.
3uring large floods all runoff generated at the .inheiros basin is pumped bac+ into
Billings reservoir. :dgard de ,ouza spillway gates are opened so that the "iete river
flows according to its natural east$west direction. "his is a very sensitive system, which
has to be operated with the due forecast, since the bac+water of :dgard de ,ouza dam
reaches the downtown very populated area of ,-o .aulo.
(ig @. Urban expansion in the upper "iete river basin
Ta!" # $ 2rowth of the urban area.
YEAR POPULATION URBANIZED AREA
MILLION OF
INHABITANTS
INCREMENT
(%)
RELATED TO THE BASIN
(%)
INCREMENT
(%)
1905 0,3 0,6
26 !33
1930 1,1 3,2
21" 12
195! 3,5 ",
166 15!
193 9,3 22,1
59 63
19"5 1!," 36,0
2 30
2005 25,5 !6,"
3ue to inade#uate land use in the basin, floods are becoming more severe in small
cree+s and the problem is being transferred to the .inheiros and "iete basins. "he
situation has become extremely critical since the main freeways of ,ao .aulo are
located exactly at the ban+s of the "iete and of the .inheiros rivers. 3uring the wet
period %3ecember till 5arch& the population is frightened. 6adio, television and
newspapers give much importance to the problem. It is clear that any hydraulic wor+
done in the "iete or .inheiros will be of little efficiency in the future if flood control is
not done in the contributing basins.
"he silting of the macro$drainage system, mainly in the alluvial plain is another
important conse#uence of the inade#uate land use in the basin. 7dditionally there is the
discharge of untreated urban and industrial waste water, to the drainage system. In this
way, not only the water but the sediment to be dredged is contaminated, and
environmentally safe measures have to be adopted to avoid impacts at the disposal site.
DATA AC$UISITION SYSTEM
H%dro!o&ic t"!"'"trin& n"t(or) o* DAEE and ELETROPAULO
"he pilot hydrologic telemetring system was installed by 37:: %3epartment of Aater
and .ower of the ,tate of ,ao .aulo& in !077 with stations' @ raingages and 9
streamgages. "he networ+ has been gradually expanded to reach its present 98 stations'
!@ streamgages and ! raingages. "hese stations are distributed along the "iete and
"amanduateB river basins. :):"6C.7U)C, the power utility of the metropolitan
region of ,ao .aulo operates a similar networ+ with a higher concentration of stations in
the .inheiros river basin. "hese two networ+s are presently integrated in such way that a
total of 10 stations are available to real time rainfall monitoring in the upper "iete river
basin %(igure !&.
7ll the microprocessors and the telemetry networ+ were designed and developed at
:scola .olitDnica by (3": %(oundation for the "echnologic 3evelopment of
:ngineering& and ="? %=entro "ecnolEgico de ?idrFulica&. Basically the rainfall sensor
is a traditional tipping buc+et gage that is coupled to a reed relay %(igure ;&.:ach time
the buc+et fills it tips up and closes the contact of the relay indicating 0.! mm of
rainfall. "he water level transducer is made of an aluminum disc and a sensor, coupled
to a traditional streamgage of the float type. "he disc has 90 radial pieces of iron
uniformly spaced around its circumference as shown in (igure .
(ig. ; $ "elemetric 6aingage
(ig. $ "elemetric ,treamgage
7 variation in water level rotates the pulley and the disc. "he parameters are such that a
! cm change in level rotates the disc by !8 degrees, thus moving one radial piece to the
position of the next. "he sensor comprises two reed relays and a permanent magnet
mounted in such a way that a magnetic circuit closes through the radial iron piece that
lies in front of the sensor. "he reeds are located in such a way that they close the
contacts in a se#uence that depends on the sense of rotation of the disc.
"he transducers are connected in the field to a remote station which is an electronic
e#uipment that stores locally the hydrologic data, releases these data to the base station
upon re#uest, interfaces with the communication lines %telephone and U?( radio& and
protects electronics from lightning. Up to 8 transducers can be simultaneously
connected to a remote station. "he remote station has an autonomy of ;8 hours in the
event of a power failure.
7ll the telemetring information is concentrated on a base station %see item & that
manages the entire networ+, interrogating se#uentially the remote stations at minutes
time intervals, transmitting control and scheduling messages and allowing the operator
access all information and to re#uest specific tas+s. "he base station performs
consistency chec+s of the data collected.
R"'ot" S"n+in& o* Rain*a!!
In !088 through an agreement between 37:: and (7.:,. %(undaG-o de 7mparo a
.es#uisa do :stado de ,-o .aulo& a weather radar was installed in the .onte *ova
reservoir east of ,-o .aulo %(igure !&. "his e#uipment developed and installed by
5c2ill University of 5ontreal, =anada allowed a much more refined estimation of the
precipitation field in the Upper "iete 6iver basin. 2iven the local climatology, where
heat island effects and the sea breeze from the nearby ocean bring a variety of weather
variability, it was decided to purchase a system with low attenuation and high ;$3
resolution.
"he radar installed in .onte *ova is an , band radar %@.0 2?H& that allows the
monitoring of reflectivity factor in 9 +m x 9 +m for a radius of 9;0 +m around its center.
6ainfall rates greater than 0.@ mm<h can be estimated using any specified H<6
relationship. 3,3 from disdrometric measurements are being conducted for ade#uating
the H<6 relationship. In (igure 1 the processes involved in the radar operation are
depicted. "he radar signal is a high power magnetron generated and transmitted through
a 9
o
?.,A. "he received signal is digitized using a 5c2ill 3II. and the data is stored
in magnetic tapes using a ),I !!<7@ 3igital microprocessor. 7n antenna program with
90 elevations is performed in @ J minutes and repeated every !0 minutes. 3uring 1 J
minutes the processor computes =7..I, :=?C"C., cross$sections, rainfall
accumulation maps and very short range forecasts for selected sites. "hese 9 +m x 9 +m
resolution maps which covers a @10 x @10 +m surveillance area, are sent through
telephone lines to the =enter for ?ydrologic 3ata %=?3& at ="? $ University of ,-o
.aulo.
In !00; a research pro/ect submitted to (7.:,. by I72 and ="? proposed the
modernization of the existing system through changes in the existing hardware and
software %5assambani, Braga and Barros, !00@&. *ew systems with ;81 platforms and
I*3K wor+stations will be operational by the end of !00 +eeping up with the new
technology available. "he following improvements will be available in the new system'
a&$replace existing ),I$!! based computer by a .= for antenna control and data
ac#uisition and a U*IL$based wor+station for calculations and graphics displays. "his
will allow for lower maintenance costs, faster ac#uisition<processing cycle %from actual
!0 minutes<cycle to minutes<cycle&, enhanced spatial resolution %from present ;+m L
;+m to 9+m L 9+m&, more processing power to run on$line forecasting modelsM b&$
replace existing communication protocol to =?3 %=enter for ?ydrological 3ata& from a
proprietary to a wide$used standard %...&, to lower maintenance costs %specialized
personnel& and to enhance availability %a private line and a dialed line instead of only
one&Mc&$replace existing digitizer electronic card by a commercial product, easing
maintenance.
(ig. 1 $ .onte *ova Aeather 6adar ,cheme
5acro scale #ualitative information from weather satellite 2C:, is received on a daily
basis from I72<U,.. 7 five day forecast from *5=$Aashington is used to guide
preparedness measures in the civil defense area. ,everal studies have being performed
integrating radar and satellite information, using II, and I6 digital from 2C:, and
5:":C,7" to discriminate the raining from the non$raining area. 67I*,7"
techni#ues as described in Bellon et al.%!080&, =," in 7dler and *egri %!088&.
5icrowave %*egri et al., !00;& has also being applied to the radar data see+ing better
description of the raining area outside the radar range.
HYDROLOGIC MODELING
Ahile it is very important to monitor rainfall and water levels in rivers and reservoirs, if
this information is not used to forecast their future values it is useless. "he way flood
levels are forecast involve some type of hydrologic modeling. "hree approaches have
been attempted in the ,ao .aulo (lood Aarning ,ystem. (or the city of ,ao .aulo a
semi$empirical model was developed for forecast in areas without streamgage
information. 7 linear stochastic model is being calibrated to the "iete river at )im-o
streamgage %(igure !& and a more complex hydrodynamic model is being developed for
the 5eninos 6iver at the /unction with the "amanduateB river. In order to have larger
lead forecasting times it is necessary to forecast rainfall. =urrently the ,?76.
techni#ue %Bellon and 7ustin, !078& is being used with some success. Improvements are
needed to cope with tropical thunderstorms that develop over the watershed during the
day in the summertime.
Rain*a!! For"ca+tin&
6adar reflectivity at a constant altitude plan %=7..I& of @ +m is converted into rainfall
rates using the 5arshall$.almer relationship. "hese rainfall rates are computed for all
pixels within the radar range. "he ,?76. techni#ue computes the advection vector for
the whole rainfall field within the radar range. "his is done through the computation of
the maximum spatial correlation for two consecutive =7..Is at !0 minute time interval.
"his techni#ue is applicable in the case of systems already developed, such as fronts and
s#uall lines. In tropical countries, however, due to the high fre#uency of convective
storms the techni#ue cannot be applied in the form developed.
=arrera, Braga and Barros %!00;& analyzed the performance of the ,?76. techni#ue in
the range of the ,-o .aulo weather radar for 7 convective and !0 mixed %cold fronts and
s#uall lines& events from !009 to !00;. 7 total of 8 and !81 =7..I, were used for
the mixed and convective events, respectively. "he percentage of failure for the whole
sample was 0 and 90 percent for the convective and mixed systems. It is clear that for
convective tropical systems other techni#ues must be developed. 7 possible way to
approach this problem is to develop a conceptual rainfall model in which water balance
and thermodynamics of the atmosphere is involved. 7dditional data, besides radar
reflectivity, will be necessary such as temperature, relative humidity, pressure and wind
direction.
F!ood *or"ca+tin&
3ifferent models are used for flood forecasting in the area. ,mall basins where no
information is available on river stages, a very simple hydrologic state model is used
%Braga, Barros and 5arcelini, !009a&. "his is a two state variable model that triggers
three levels of warning. (lood forecasts are based on rainfall intensity forecast %one, two
and three hours ahead& and observed cumulative rainfall. "he accumulation interval
depends on the watershed characteristics. By sampling past events, in which flooding
problems have occurred, it is possible to establish empirical thresholds for warning
conditions of observation, attention, alert and emergency.
(or streamgage stations, such as 5eninos in the "amanduateB 6iver and )im-o in the
"iet> 6iver other type of forecasting models are used. (or the 5eninos 6iver the 5:)
model %Braga, !08!M Braga, Barros and 5arcelini, !009a& is used. "his model is a linear
stochastic model with exogenous variables %rainfall& that forecasts future flows based on
current and previously observed flows.
=alibration of the model for the 5eninos river basin produced the following expected
value forecasting e#uation'
%r9N0.0@1&
where is the flow gradient for time t and is the average rainfall at
isochrone 9 in time t$!.
5ore recently to reduce the problem of estimating an appropriate H<6 relationship for
the radar area, the 5:) model was extended to operate directly with the reflectivity
data from the .onte *ova weather radar. 5:)$673 uses the same concept of 5:) and
a non$linear optimization scheme to obtain the best parameters of the H<6 relationship
to fit the streamflow data. "he model has been calibrated to the "iete river at )im-o
streamgage station.
7 more sophisticated approach using model 5:) and a hydrodynamic model for water
stages forecast was successfully applied to the "iet> river at Csasco %Braga, Barros and
5arcelini, !009b&. Under this approach model 5:) forecasts the lateral flows for a
hydrodynamic model that routes the flows through the channel. ,ome difficulties found
in the application of these more elaborated techni#ues relate to the lac+ of reliable river
cross section data.
INFORMATION MANAGEMENT SYSTEM
7ll the above hydrologic and meteorological data generated over the Upper "iet> 6iver
basin in different sampling time intervals, by different agencies is ade#uately managed
through a supervisor program at =entro "ecnologico de ?idrFulica. "he system depicted
in (igure 7 involves the collection of all the data generated by the telemetric networ+
and meteorological radar, processing of the data for consistency and storage. "his data
is then used by one of the several models aforementioned to forecast future rainfall %up
to @ hour in advance& and to transform these forecasts in flows an river stage forecasts.
7 considerable amount of data has been stored since the beginning of the operation of
the system. 7pproximately, 80,000 weather radar volume scans are stored in 10
magnetic tapes from 5ay !088 when the .onte *ova weather radar began its operation.
7s of 5arch !00!, storage of telemetric data was systematized comprising !90 5b of
7,=II information. 7 preliminary analysis of these data show a poor performance with
only ;8 O of the data in conditions to be used for research. "he reason for this low
performance is the traditional lac+ of investment in basic data collection and
maintenance in less developed countries. "he situation of the weather radar is rather
different as can be appreciated in (igure 8. "he e#uipment is turned off during periods
of no rainfall to increase magnetron durability. "hese periods are forecasted by the
#ualitative macro scale satellite information. 7s a result during the dry season %5ay$
7ugust& the use of the e#uipment is halved.
"he data already collected and stored by the .onte *ova weather radar allowed the
analysis of rainfall characteristics for different seasons in the area of surveillance of the
e#uipment. In (igure 0, for example, it is clearly shown the higher fre#uency of
occurrence of rainfall in the afternoon in the summertime.
(ig 7 $ Information 5anagement ,ystem of ,-o .aulo 5etropolitan 6egion
(ig. 8 $ Cperation of .onte *ova radar from !00! until !00@
(ig 0 $ 6ainfall =haracteristics in ,ummer of !00@ in the 6adar 6ange
"he Information 5anagement ,ystem %I5,& in operation at ="? has several users
varying from hydroelectric power companies, cities administrations, civil defense
commissions, environmental control agencies, "I stations, and the general public.
"hese users communicate with the system either through dedicated telephone lines or
through regular telephone lines under the software ":):7=:,,C.
":):7=:,,C is a menu operated software that allows the user to re#uest different
products generated by the I5,. "hese products include' rainfall intensities and
accumulated rainfall, =7..I, rainfall forecast and river stage forecast. ,ince !000 a
regular program of reliability assessment of the system has been implemented. In terms
of flood forecasting using the empirical model for the city of ,ao .aulo a previous
survey by Braga, Barros and 5arcelini %!009a&indicates that a margin of error in the
range of !0 percent. It is clear from these results that even very simple models can
provide reliable results once a good spatial rainfall estimation is available.
In !00; another ma/or effort to improve the performance of the I5, was underta+en by
5assambani, Braga and Barros %!00;&. "he new I5, that is expected to be in operation
during the rainy season of !00 $ !001 will have a =?3 %=enter for ?ydrological 3ata&
as an on$line hydrological database for present and past events. 7s depicted in (igure !0
it connects' the meteorological radar in .onte *ova, the telemetric networ+s, the
forecasting models and other sources of information. "his will allow the users of
":):7=:,,C to have an unified interface.
(ig.!0 $ "he new =enter for ?ydrologic 3ata $ =?3
=?3 will +eep recent data %about last 9 months& in magnetic storage, updating
information from radar, telemetric networ+ or other sources of information. 7 special
data format is being specified to allow gathering information into =?3 in a organized
way. Clder data will be further classified in Psignificant eventsP, allowing for a fast
retrieval from optical dis+s by meaningful names, or mar+ed as Pordinary eventsP to be
retrieved by date<time. "his older data will be +ept in optical midia.
7ccess to this information will be provide primary by the new ":):7=:,,C, a 5,$
AindowsQ based program, featuring' information retrieval from =?3M layered views of
information, including geographical, river stages, precipitation and others to be
displayed and manipulated as followsM zoomingM animated simulation, including
interpolation and extrapolation of<between eventsM alarms to be associated to eventsM
interfacing with 5,$Aindows 33: applications %such as 5,$:xcel or a user
application& to allow for local processingM among others. (inally, the =?3 remote
operator console will easy operational procedures, allowing for a remote support to
operate =?3 in case of failure.
CONCLUSIONS AND RECOMMENDATIONS
"he activities and a summary of main research achievements in the operation of the ,ao
.aulo (lood Aarning ,ystem was presented. "he system has a very important social
component in the sense that it provides the ,tate and municipal civil defense means of
mitigating the floods effects on the riverine poor people of the region. 5oreover when
one considers that raw sewage flows in all cree+s and rivers in the region it becomes
extremely important to have a reliable forecasting system. "he forecasting system is in
operation since !071 and its performance was greatly improved in !088 with the
installation of a weather radar in .onte *ova dam.
*ew improvements are being made to the existing system including updated software
and computational techni#ues. (rom the technological point of view, this new system
puts together low cost .=$based data servers and medium$to$high end wor+stations, in a
networ+ed environment thought with availability, open$system standards and
operational costs in mind. 7ll this together ma+es this architecture a reference for
similar pro/ects.
In addition to the operational benefits this system has provided an excellent data base
which is being used in several completed studies leading to 5.,c. and .h.3. at
University of ,ao .aulo, as well as it is opened to be used for scientific international
cooperation in particular to "655 %"ropical 6ainfall 5easuring 5ission& from
*7,7<*7,37.
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