The infrastructures of the electricity system are subject to the danger of floods and landslides which can cause damage and disruptions. Furthermore, the results of the climate scenarios currently available show a general tendency towards an increase in this danger. The perimeters of the areas subject to hydrogeological hazards prepared by the Authorities, while representing a fundamental tool, do not always provide all the parameters necessary for the evaluation of the degree of expected damage to the infrastructures and do not give any indications on the possible evolution of the hazard over time as a result of climate changes.
To overcome these limits, models capable of simulating cause-effect processes by accurately representing physical phenomena characterized by different spatial and temporal scales are needed.
For this purpose, this study presents examples of the application of models at different spatio-temporal scales, also taking into account any variations induced by climate change. As a climate reference, the results relating to the most precautionary scenario called “business as usual” (RCP 8.5) were used, i.e. a scenario where no measure has been adopted in the future to reduce anthropogenic climate forcing.
Two expeditious methodologies were applied on a national scale to evaluate the consequences of this scenario: one to predict the triggering of superficial landslides and one to estimate river flooding phenomena.
Moving from the national scale to a river basin scale, the CRHyME (Climatic Rainfall Hydrogeological Modeling Experiment) model, developed within this project to evaluate potential hydrogeological threats that can occur at this scale, was applied on sample sites. The model allowed us to evaluate estimates of the expected changes for the ground variables of liquid flow rate, solid flow rate, solid transport volume, number of surface landslide triggers and number of debris flows.
Finally, moving on to a further detailed scale, an application was carried out with the FLORA2D two-dimensional hydraulic model to evaluate the potential flooding and the related water heights in correspondence with an electrical substation. Once the maps of the expected water heights for the two Return Times of 200 and 500 years were obtained via a hydraulic model, the direct economic damages of the flood was estimated using the FloodRisk2 application, according to different vulnerability models of the assets at risk.