On 1 November 2010, an extreme rainfall event hit the Veneto region, and in particular the Cities of Verona, Vicenza and Padua. After that event, the Veneto Region, entrusted BETA Studio with the final design of a retention basin along the Timonchio river. This is the most significant intervention of all the measures to reduce flood risk and improve urban drainage against storm water. Beta Studio has dealt with the design of a retention basin for flood risk reduction (having a volume equal to 3,75 Mm³) along the Timonchio river for the reduction of the flood risk on the important city of Vicenza (inscribed by UNESCO in its list of world heritage sites) upgrading the storm water drainage systems. During the design many activities were carried out, including topographic survey, geotechnical survey, remote sensing survey with LiDAR, hydrometric survey. An hydrological and a 1D-2D hydraulic model has been implemented to obtain the flooded area with and without the retention basin. More detailed hydraulic simulations have been performed to design and verify the hydraulic structures of the retention basin. Based on the results of simulation, detailed design was carried out including economic and financial analysis and environmental and social impacts.
Meetings and workshops have been organized in order to facilitate and encourage public awareness and participation. Furthermore a 1D-2D hydraulic model has been used to study the propagation of the flood wave in two-dimensional domain in order to define areas of hydraulic hazard and to evaluate the benefit of the proposed measures in term of flood risk reduction. After the Detail Design approval, BS was appointed to carry out the works supervision.
