ABSTRACT
ABSTRACT: The Swiss Commission for Flood Protection elaborated a unified concept to determine the freeboard in order to evaluate the discharge capacity of a stream. It consists of several partial freeboards. On one hand, the partial freeboards take the uncertainty of the calculation of the water level into consideration. On the other hand, they consider hydraulic processes like the formation of waves, the backwater effect at obstructions or the additional space needed to convey floating debris underneath bridges. The concept includes recommendations on how to account for freeboard in flood mapping. With its concept paper on freeboard, the Swiss Commission for Flood Protection wishes that the freeboard will be taken into account in flood mapping and hydraulic design in Switzerland on an unified and coherent basis.
