Smart Approaches to Predict Floods and Droughts: Current Technology and Challenges

Dear Colleagues,

Floods and droughts are hydrological extreme events that result in severe damage to infrastructures and the livelihood of people. The causes of floods and droughts can be due to natural factors, human factors and a combination of the two. Insufficient flood drainage due to poor drainage facilities, low lying land and aggravation of drainage ways are examples of other causes of floods. For droughts, insufficient rainfall, excessive use of runoff and improper land use are examples of their causes. The impacts of floods and inundation can result in damage more quickly than droughts, where the impacts take longer to materialise, are usually longer lasting and are even more severe. Lack of data is another problem that limits the analysis and prediction of floods and droughts, and thus data acquisition is important.

Previous and current technologies in predicting floods and droughts solve equations of water balance, motion of water mass and hydrological processes. In solving them, various computational methods are used, such as numerical and statistical methods, artificial intelligence and machine learning techniques, etc. Innovation of new modeling techniques for solving hydrological processes, consideration of the effects of climate and land use changes are important and require the attention of the research community.

The main objective of this Special Issue is to invite submissions of research paper manuscripts on advanced or novel approaches and emerging technologies for real-time forecasting of floods and droughts and prediction on a long-term basis. The impacts of floods and droughts on hazards, vulnerability, risk mitigation and adaption measures are welcome.

The scope of research should be related, but not limited, to the following:

• Advanced approaches and emerging technologies on new modeling techniques to predict floods and droughts on a real-time basis or long-term prediction;
• Real-time data acquisition approaches and analysis using remote sensing, wireless sensor network, artificial intelligence, machine learning, etc.;
• Comparison of modelling tools and techniques, model calibration and validation;
• Application of machine learning technologies;
• Flood and drought frequency, forecasting and impact assessment;
• Effects of future climate change, land use change and related issues;
• Assessment of hazard, vulnerability, risk, mitigation and adaptation.

Prof. Dr. Tawatchai Tingsanchali
Dr. Fazlul Karim
Guest Editors

Manuscript Submission Information

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Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2400 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

• floods
• droughts
• modeling
• data acquisition
• artificial intelligence
• prediction
• forecasting
• hazard and risk analysis
• mitigation and adaptation