Winner of the Journal of Flood Risk Management (JFRM) Outstanding Paper Award Announced

'Evaluation of flood risk reduction strategies through combinations of interventions' is selected as the winning paper in Volume 12 of the Journal for the JFRM Outstanding Paper Award. 

https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/page/journal/1753318x/homepage/best-paper-award

Congratulations to Erik C. van Berchum, William Mobley, Sebastiaan N. Jonkman, Jos S. Timmermans, Jan H. Kwakkel, and Samuel D. Brody who have been selected for the JFRM Best Paper Award 2020 for their paper ' Evaluation of flood risk reduction strategies through combinations of interventions'.


The winning paper describes the Multiple Lines of Defence Optimization System (MODOS)‐model which was developed to simulate combinations of interventions to lower the risk of flooding to an acceptable level in large, complex coastal regions. This probabilistic model simulates and evaluates the impact of many flood risk reduction strategies rapidly while accounting for interdependencies amongst the component measures. These measures can be both structural and non-structural and the impacts assessed in economic terms and non-economic indicators. MODOS includes hydraulic calculations, damage calculations, and the effects of measures for various return periods.

The application and potential of this model is shown with a conceptual and simplified case study, based on the Houston‐Galveston Bay area. The analyses demonstrate how the MODOS‐model identifies trade‐offs within the system and shows how flood risk, cost, and impact respond to flood management decisions. This improved understanding of the impact of design and planning choices can benefit the discussions in finding the optimal flood risk reduction strategy for coastal regions. The intention is that the model has a sufficiently generic setup, that it can easily be adapted to other flood‐prone regions around the world. In their review the editors noted that the paper describes an innovative approach, which is a step forward for decision-making aids; it is well written and presented.

Three other papers have also been highly commended:

Selection process:

In reaching their judgement on the winner and the selection of the commended papers, the Editors considered the 84 papers published in the four regular issues and the supplementary issue of Volume 12, and prepared a long-list for detailed reading based on information on downloads and citations which indicate our readers’ interest in the contributions. A shortlist of seven papers was prepared from these reviews which were considered again independently rating the contribution to each paper flood risk management science and practice, and, the quality of the presentation of the material to agree the winning and highly commended papers.

The journal’s Editor-in-Chief Paul Samuels said;

"The winning and highly commended papers can all be used as examples for other authors; they all cover important aspects of flood risk management, they are well structured and written, with appropriate summaries and well-argued conclusions."

All articles published by the Journal of Flood Risk Management are fully open access: immediately freely available to read, download and share. If you would like to contribute, learn more about our author guidelines here.

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