Review of Flood Risk Simulation by F.C.B. Mascarenhas, K. Toda, M.G. Miguez, and K. Inoue: WIT Press, Billerica, Mass.; 2004; ISBN: 1-85312-751-5; 436 pp. Price: $258.

A new book on modeling of flood risks is a welcome addition to the literature, given the many flood disasters of recent years. It seems that flood losses continue to worsen, in spite of our improved understanding of flood causes, threats, and protection measures. Flood Risk Simulation adds to this literature with a new presentation of existing theories of hydraulic modeling of floods, along with practical applications to river and urban situations.

The author’s vivid description in the preface of how the book came about explains his approach. The book is divided into three discrete sections (called chapters), written by different authors or teams of authors. The principal author is from the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro. His first chapter of some 283 pages is the major part of the book. It presents theories and applications of one-dimensional unsteady free-surface flow and dam-break analysis. The second part of the book, covering some 50 pages, is written by two authors from Kyoto University, in Japan. They present a different approach to hydraulic modeling of flood inundation, with emphasis on both rural and urban areas. The book’s third part, written by the principal author and a colleague at the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro, spans 101 pages. It presents an alternative modeling approach to the one of the first section.

The book contains a number of equations, explanations, and clear illustrations of flood inundation scenarios. At times, however, reading it can be heavy-going. For example, the book’s opening paragraph is nearly three pages long and covers a number of different subjects. It will take a patient and dedicated reader to fathom all of the ideas contained in it. The author proceeds from there to present the general one-dimension analysis of unsteady flow and its solution methods. This is followed by a section on practical problems of solution and then by another on parameter identification. The next section, which focuses on problems of selected rivers, is followed by a rather comprehensive section on dam-break analysis.

The presentation in the second part of the book focuses on “inundation analysis,” that is, to delineate the inundated areas. The authors accomplish this by creating meshes to model flood plains and urban areas. They illustrate several applications of their mesh-based approach, including ones for mountainous, urban, and low-lying areas.

Although the principal author wrote section one and three of the book (with a co-author in part 3), the third part takes a different approach, based on a “mathematical cell model.” Development of the equations and application examples are presented in the chapter.

Rather than the deliberate treatment you would find in a textbook, the presentation is a potpourri of model techniques and lessons. In effect, three different approaches to flood hydraulic modeling are presented in the book, but without a unified analysis and comparison. The book is more like the proceedings of a conference than an integrated textbook, although the principal author’s explanation of one-dimensional hydraulic modeling in the first part is rather comprehensive.

An uninitiated reader would do better to search out an introductory textbook on unsteady-flow analysis and proceed from there. This book will appeal more to the reader who is already participating in modeling exercises and who seeks to compare his or her work with that of others. Another benefit of this book might be the compilation of literature and references, which might contain new ones to add to a field that is already rich with papers and books about unsteady, open-channel flow.

While the book contains many details about flood hydraulics, the reader who, from the book’s title, anticipates finding a comprehensive treatment of flood risk will be disappointed, because the book treats only a narrow band of the range of issues in risk. Its focus is on hydraulics and the book might be more accurately titled “Flood Risk Hydraulics,” or something like that. Missing is a range of topics, such as hydrologic risk, flood loss estimation, vulnerability analysis, mitigation, emergency response, and related topics of flood risk.

The book will be of interest to hydraulic modelers and analysts who would like to compare different methods of river simulation. While it does not seem to break new ground, it describes ideas and experiences of the authors in facing and solving a number of specific problems of river simulation during floods.