nofdp IDSS - an Open-Source Flood Control Planning Decision Support System

Abstract

The nofdp3 IDSS (Information and Decision Support System) is an interactive planning and communication software that is open source and thus available free of charge to the user. The software is designed to assist water managers in the interactive and iterative process of developing and communicating flood risk management strategies that keep track with a balanced view on the often conflicting issues of spatial planning, flood damage prevention and ecological development. It addresses a combination of both technical and non-technical measures to reduce the risk of flood damage and to improve nature at the same time. Eight project partners from The Netherlands and Germany were directly involved in the development process. A consortium formed by BCE (GER) and Delft Hydraulics (NL) implemented the descriptive concept that was developed by Darmstadt University of Technology. A first key functionality of interaction enables the user to position 22 different types of measures of flood control on a map within a GIS environment. At the same time, the user can assess spatial conflicts. Individual measures can be grouped to form scenarios and are evaluated interactively. The nofdp IDSS provides four different methods of evaluation, ranging from simple ranking methods to sophisticated methods like value-benefit-analysis and cost-benefit-analysis. Planning results have to be discussed and communicated for this, a Report-Generator collects all the relevant data of a project. A Google Earth export allows informing third parties about the planning results. The measures and their effects on the flooding simulation can be displayed three dimensionally within Google Earth. At first, this paper describes the scope of the software and in which way the decision maker is supported. Secondly, the reasons to tune in to the open-source philosophy are mentioned and future prospect are described. You can download the latest release version as well as the source code from http://nofdpidss.sourceforge.net.