New communication and digital image technologies have enabled the public to produce large quantities of flood observations and share them through social media. In addition to flood incident reports, valuable hydraulic data such as the extent and depths of inundated areas and flow rate estimates can be computed using messages, photos and videos produced by citizens. Such crowdsourced data help improve the understanding and modelling of flood hazard. Since little feedback on similar initiatives is available, we introduce three recent citizen science projects which have been launched independently by research organisations to quantitatively document flood flows in catchments and urban areas of Argentina, France, and New Zealand. Key drivers for success appear to be: a clear and simple procedure, suitable tools for data collecting and processing, an efficient communication plan, the support of local stakeholders, and the public awareness of natural hazards.

The probability of the occurrence of urban flash floods has increased appreciably in recent years. Scientists have published various articles related to the estimation of the vulnerability of people and vehicles in urban areas resulting from flash floods. However, most published works are based on research performed using numerical models and laboratory experiments. This paper presents a novel approach that combines the implementation of image velocimetry technique (large-scale particle image velocimetry-LSPIV) using a flash flood video recorded by the public locally and the estimation of the vulnerability of people and vehicles to high water velocities in urban areas. A numerical onedimensional hydrodynamic model has also been used in this approach for water velocity characterization. The results presented in this paper correspond to a flash flood resulting on November 29, 2012, in the city of Asunción in Paraguay. During this flash flood, people and vehicles were observed being carried away because of high water velocities. Various sequences of the recorded flash flood video were characterized using LSPIV. The results obtained in this work validate the existing vulnerability criterion based on the effect of the flash flood and resulting high water velocities on people and vehicles.

Este trabajo presenta una evaluación experimental de una técnica de cuantificación de caudales de aguas superficiales en ríos serranos de la provincia de Córdoba. Los ríos serranos de la provincia de Córdoba se caracterizan por su alta variabilidad temporal definida por la ocurrencia de crecientes repentinas o torrenciales de corta duración y gran velocidad de la corriente (en épocas de lluvias) y por la presencia de periodos extensos de estiaje (período de aguas bajas) con caudales del orden de unos cientos de litros por segundo lo que dificulta la selección de una técnica experimental óptima para todas las condiciones de flujo presentes durante un año. En este trabajo se presenta como alternativa una técnica remota para estimar el caudal escurrido en un curso fluvial en al ámbito serrano implementando a gran escala la técnica de velocimetría por seguimiento de partículas (de sus siglas en inglés LS PTV) la cual puede ser aplicada eficientemente en periodos de aguas bajas y medias con un bajo costo relativo. El campo de velocidad superficial determinado experimentalmente con LS PTV en un curso fluvial sembrado con partículas o trazadores y la batimetría de la sección transversal conocida permiten realizar estimaciones del caudal escurrido. La metodología experimental propuesta es validada con resultados obtenidos utilizando simultáneamente otras técnicas en el río San Antonio en la región serrana de la provincia de Córdoba, en dos secciones diferentes, Cuesta Blanca y Villa Carlos Paz, en condiciones de aguas bajas y medias, respectivamente. Finalmente, se discuten las posibles fuentes de errores involucradas en la implementación de la metodología experimental presentada.