Real time flood warning systems for natural rivers

The aim of the present work is to describe real time warning systems and the operating warning system of Ticino River in Pavia; this system was completed a few months ago and the first application gave the opportunity to evaluate its efficiency. In November 1994 the city of Pavia was inundated by Ticino River and in the same period other cities of the north-western part of Italy were damaged by floods. Because of the heavy consequences of these extreme floods (Tanaro River flooding event caused about 60 victims), the responsible of Civil Protection in Pavia decided to set up a real time warning system to forecast with a reasonable lead time possible floods. In this work some activities are described; they are not only theoretical exercises but they contributed to the realization of the system and they show some difficulties in setting up a real time warning system. A possible extension of the proposed forecasting model is presented; the aim is to try to use the same model for other natural rivers.