Flood Response Management in Melbourne Water

The Melbourne Water (MW) Flood Response Management System is a comprehensive process developed to deal with flood incidents that occur within its areas of jurisdiction. The process consists of four main stages: incident initiation, incident response, incident closure, and incident training. The initiation of a flood incident is determined by the types and number of alarms received by the flood warning duty officer. The incident response, managed by an Incident Manager, includes a number of tasks such as the setting up of a flood response team, the selection of an incident management centre, the communication and coordination among team members and with related agencies, the dealing with various engineering aspects that may arise during the incident, etc.. Implementation of the flood response management system also involves continuous monitoring of the MW's Supervisory Control and Data Acquisition (SCADA) telemetry network of rainfall and level gauging stations, as well as references to the MW's Flood Response Plan and Flood Warning Manual. Successful management of a flood incident depends on the effective implementation of all the tasks required in the process, especially in the communication and co-ordination with all individuals and organisations involved, and the provision of regular training for the flood response team to carry out their intended responsibilities.