Urban flood drifters (UFD): Identification, classification and characterisation

Extreme floods threaten lives, assets and ecosystems, with the largest impacts occurring in urbanised areas. However, flood mitigation schemes generally neglect the fact that urban floods carry a considerable amount of solid load. In this study, we define urban flood drifters (UFDs) as loose objects present in the urban landscape that can become mobile under certain flow conditions, thereafter blocking drainage infrastructure and endangering both downstream and upstream communities. Based on 270 post-flood photographic records from 63 major inundations of the past quarter-century across 46 countries, we provide a comprehensive analysis of UFDs and their flood-hazard implications. We show that a variety of vehicles, furniture and a heterogeneous mixture of drifters are present in post-flooding scenarios. Plastic, construction debris and wood (natural or anthropogenic) dominate the statistics of transported drifters in urban floods (with frequencies of roughly 50%–60% each), followed by cars (present in 31.5% of post-flood images). Other heavy vehicles are readily observed in post-flood imagery and furniture such as bins, garden sheds or water tanks also appear occasionally, therefore suggesting that they can play a relevant role in extreme floods.