On the use of innovative post-event data for reducing uncertainty incalibrating flood propagation models

Hydraulic models for flood propagation description are an essential tool in many fields and are used, for example,for flood hazard and risk assessments, evaluation of flood control measures, etc. However, the calibration of thesemodels is still underdeveloped in contrast to other models like e.g. hydrological models essentially for lacking ofspecific data, because extreme flood events occur rarely and very rarely are monitored. Very often calibration data,when available, consist of water depths measure in some scattered points.For an inundation event occurred on November 2011 in Sicily, new sources of data were available due to theavailability of many videos recorded by ‘common’ people using new technologies. These videos allowed to deriveflow velocities and estimate flow discharges in some parts of the inundated area. These pieces of informationhave been used together with the measured water depths to improve GLUE calibration of a two-dimensional finiteelement flood propagation model and reduce equifinality in its predictions.