1999 – Real Time Flood Management of the Brisbane River and Pine River Dams During the February 1999 Flood

Peter Allen, Don Cock, Garry Grant and John Ruffini

The paper examines the performance of the Brisbane River and Pine River real time flood management system for the operation of Somerset Dam, Wivenhoe Dam and North Pine Dam during the 1999 flood event.

The February flood event, which was about 80% of the magnitude of the disastrous 1974 flood event upstream of Wivenhoe Dam, was the first major flood event to be managed by the system and it performed very creditably. The overall flood management system comprises:-
A network of 125 ALERT type rainfall and river height stations throughout the catchment; A data management system to facilitate data collection and data validation;

  • Hydrologic models to provide inflows into the dams and major downstream tributaries; Gate operation models to route the inflows through the reservoirs; and
  • Hydraulic models of the main river channels downstream of the dams.

The paper describes the system and gives details of the performance of the system during the February event. It details the performance of the dams during the event and how this was optimised to maximise the safety of the dams and minimise impacts on those downstream.

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