The course presents hydro-meteorological extreme events, such as rainfall, wind gusts, snowfalls, floods, and droughts, in relation to the design and verification of Civil Engineering works. The course provides a basic knowledge of the physical processes involved in the events and then introduces their classification, measurement, data availability and impact. Quantitative and statistical methods are presented for the analysis of extreme events and of their occurrences. The course also presents the analysis of risks associated to extreme events and their effects on the population, on natural and built environment, on buildings and infrastructures. The methods and the proposed applications aim at enabling the solution of a wide range of complex practical engineering problems, including the design and verification of structures and infrastructures in relation to extreme events.

During the course, the students will gain knowledge on physical principles governing extreme events related to hydro-meteorological variables. Students will learn quantitative methods to analyze real data time series, to estimate future values, to quantify and express uncertainty. Students will acquire skills to estimate and verify design variables, to use statistical tools for the assessment of probabilities and return periods of events. Students will gain competences in the analysis of past events and in the quantification of risks associated to hydro-meteorological variables.

Basic principles of the physics of fluids, such as hydrostatics, flow dynamics, pressure and force distribution. Knowledge of descriptive statistics and the fundamentals of probability and statistics. Students are expected to be familiar with some data processing software for the development of assignments and exercises. The course attendance requires fluent spoken and written English.

The course is organized in the following modules: - Hydro-meteorological variables and extreme events (precipitation depth, duration and intensity; precipitation maxima; river discharge and water levels, floods, peak values and hydrographs; wind speed, gusts, duration and intensity; droughts and water scarcity). - Design variables related to hydro-meteorological events (data analysis, probability distributions, return period; frequency analysis of extreme events, statistical testing, quantification of uncertainty; regionalization and regression models; areal effects, spatial interpolation) - Hazard analysis for floods, intense precipitation, wind gust. - Hydro-meteorological road hazard and rainfall-induced landslides. - Risk and reliability analysis. - Climate change effects on hydro-meteorological risks and main adaptation measures. - Cost-benefit analysis.

The course is organized in lectures (about 40 hours) and exercise classes (about 20 hours). During lectures the concepts and procedures will be explained with blackboard writing and/or with the support of slides that will be shared in the course material. During exercise classes, the students will apply the principles illustrated during lectures to solve practical problems related to Civil Engineering and will be supported in the solution of numerical exercises and applications. Working in small groups, students will also be asked to prepare a course report and an oral presentation delivered to the class at the end of the course. The report and the presentation will be graded and contribute to the final evaluation.

All material that is necessary for the course will be presented and discussed in class. Reference books, for deepening the knowledge on the topics, are: - Kottegoda, Rosso, “Applied Statistics for Civil and Environmental Engineering”, Blackwell Publishing, 2008. - Stedinger, Vogel & Foufoula-Georgiou, Frequency Analysis of Extreme Events, Chapter 18 in Maidment ed., “Handbook of Hydrology”, McGraw-Hill Book Company, 1993. - Probabilistic Design: Risk and Reliability. Analysis in Civil Engineering. Lecture notes CIE4130. S.N. Jonkman. R.D.J.M. Steenbergen. O. Morales-Nápoles (https://repository.tudelft.nl/islandora/object/uuid:e53b8dca-a0db-4433-b9f9-e190a507f99f/datastream/OBJ/download), for the risk and reliability analysis part. Additional readings can be found in international reference textbooks and will be proposed throughout the course.

Slides;

Modalità di esame: Prova scritta (in aula); Elaborato progettuale in gruppo;

Exam: Written test; Group project;

... The course assessment is contributed by the course report and oral presentation (40%) and by the written exam (60%). The evaluation of reports and presentations will be shared by all students in the group and will take into account the completeness, the correctness of results, the appropriate organization of information in the document and the effectiveness of the presentation. The written exam will last a maximum of 2 hours and include some exercises and open questions. The exercises will have to be solved by hand calculations (no laptop computers) and are aimed at verifying the understanding and correct application of quantitative methods. The open questions will focus on topics introduced during the lectures and are aimed at verifying the acquired knowledge about processes, principles and modeling techniques. The evaluation will take into account the resolution methods, the correctness of the numerical solutions, the knowledge demonstrated and the clarity of presentation. The maximum mark will be 30/30.

Gli studenti e le studentesse con disabilità o con Disturbi Specifici di Apprendimento (DSA), oltre alla segnalazione tramite procedura informatizzata, sono invitati a comunicare anche direttamente al/la docente titolare dell'insegnamento, con un preavviso non inferiore ad una settimana dall'avvio della sessione d'esame, gli strumenti compensativi concordati con l'Unità Special Needs, al fine di permettere al/la docente la declinazione più idonea in riferimento alla specifica tipologia di esame.