Ingenieurbüro Neukirchen, a reputable consulting company from Vienna, Austria, has used the AQUATERRA-MIKE connection to facilitate the working process of the Alm River flood risk mapping. The project was a part of Water Bodies Care and Management Concept of the Federal Water Engineering Administration for the Gmunden district (Upper Austria), and was motivated by flooding that took place in the August 2002. DHI Germany was also involved in the project.   The Alm River originates in the Almsee Lake and flows northwards for 48,800 km, where it joins the Traun River. Average longitudinal slope is 5.3 ‰. In the past, several flow and sediment control measures were constructed, among them 30 weirs, 3 steps and 13 ramps. The number of bridges crossing the river is also significant - 36.
Alm River (courtesy of IB Neukirchen)	Alm Valley
A typical weir on the Alm River (courtesy of IB Neukirchen)
Flood risk map for the area of Grubbach-Gangljodl.
For flood risk analyses, MIKE NAM and MIKE FLOOD were used. The deterministic hydrological MIKE NAM model was used for rainfall-runoff simulation. MIKE FLOOD was applied for integrated flood modelling of both river and floodplains. The flood risk mapping for discharges of different return periods, from 2 to 300 years, showed that the risk is greater in the districts of the middle and upper Alm valey than in the lower Alm valley.   The reports for the study were prepared in AutoCAD, as this provides best options for producing and plotting technical drawings and plans, as well as an appropriate environment for the design of flood protection measures. The transfer of the results from MIKE to AutoCAD (or the other way) has always been a tedious job that took engineers a lot of valuable time and sometimes even resulted in errors in final plots.   For this project, it was decided to use AQUATERRA’s MIKE 11 Interface. The result was a swift and accurate transfer of longitudinal profiles, cross sections, water levels and levees to AutoCAD drawings. One of the requirements was that the MIKE FLOOD style water levels (1D in channel and 2D on flood plain) were displayed, which was also easily achieved. AQUATERRA also provided command for processing and plotting of profiles and sections. Placing the AQUATERRA software into the work process of the flood study thus saved a considerable amount of time and prevented errors during the MIKE-AutoCAD data transfer.
AQUATERRA is a product of CGS plus, a leading provider of civil engineering software solutions in Central and Eastern Europe. Based on Autodesk technology, CGS plus software includes PLATEIA for roadway design, AQUATERRA for river engineering and FERROVIA for railway design. CGS plus software is adapted to local civil engineering standards in more than 20 European countries.