Strengthening Flood Management Education

Risk management should start with a flood risk map developed on the basis of fluvial flows, vulnerability & exposure indexes and consequences’ assessments. Of course, this requires the development of mathematical models. Nevertheless, Professor Pasche emphasized that “engineers need to see the limits of models. There is reality and there are models, which are only a simplification of reality”. “Once we understand that, we are ready to use interface models adaptable to reality”. Integration of models, “building a pyramid instead of bungalows”, is the way forward.

Based on these premises, the hydrology team of the University of Hamburg developed an open source application for geospatial modelling and simulation. Kalypso is developed to be a user friendly tool for GIS-based modelling and simulation of hydrological and hydraulic numerical models. Thanks to a generic approach one can use the platform to handle models of arbitrary nature.