Application of the WRF model rainfall product for the localized flood hazard modeling in a data-scarce environment

Natural Hazards - Urban flood hazard model needs rainfall with high spatial and temporal resolutions for flood hazard analysis to better simulate flood dynamics in complex urban...     

An integrated flood inundation model for coastal urban watershed of Navi Mumbai,India

Most urban agglomerations located in the Mumbai coastal region in India are vulnerable to flooding due to increasing frequency of the short-duration heavy rainfall, by virtue of their location at foothills on one side and tidal variations on the other side. Steep slopes in the catchment ensure fast runoff and tidal variation adds to backwater effect in the drainage system, which together are favorable for flooding. The present study simulates the flood inundation due to heavy rainfall and high-tide conditions in a coastal urban catchment within Mumbai region with detention pond. Overland flow is modeled using a mass balance approach, which can adapt to hilly slopes and smoothly accommodate detention pond hydraulics. Dynamic wave channel routing based on finite element method captures the backwater effects due to tidal variation, and raster-based flood inundation model enables direct use of digital elevation model. The integrated model is capable of simulating detention pond hydraulics within the raster flood model for heavy rainfall events. The database required for the model is obtained from the geographical information system (GIS) and remote sensing techniques. Application of the integrated model to literature problems and the catchment of the study area for two non-flooding events gave satisfactory results. Further, the model is applied to an extreme rainfall event of July 26, 2005, coinciding with high-tide conditions, which revealed vulnerability of the area to flooding despite of an existing detention pond. A sensitivity analysis on the location of detention pond indicated that catchment response can be better governed by relocating the detention pond to upstream of existing detention pond especially when heavy rainfall events are becoming frequent.     

MERLIN: a flood hazard forecasting system for coastal river reaches

Natural Hazards - This study presents MERLIN, an innovative flood hazard forecasting system for predicting discharges and water levels at flood prone areas of coastal catchments. Discharge...     

Integration of inland and coastal storms for flood hazard assessment using a distributed hydrologic model

Due to increasing flood severities and frequencies, studies on coastal vulnerability assessment are of increasing concern. Evaluation of flood inundation depth and extent is the first issue in flood vulnerability analysis. This study has proposed a practical framework for reliable coastal floodplain delineation considering both inland and coastal flooding. New York City (NYC) has been considered as the case study because of its vulnerability to storm surge-induced hazards. For floodplain delineation, a distributed hydrologic model is used. In the proposed method, the severities of combined inland and coastal floods for different recurrence intervals are determined. Through analyzing past storms in the study region, a referenced (base) configuration of rainfall and storm surge is selected to be used for defining flood scenarios with different return periods. The inundated areas are determined under different flooding scenarios. The inundation maps of 2012 superstorm Sandy in NYC is simulated and compared with the FEMA revised maps which shows a close agreement. This methodology could be of significant value to the planners and engineers working on the preparedness of coastal urban communities against storms by providing a platform for updating inundation maps as new events are observed and new information becomes available.     

A flood vulnerability index for coastal cities and its use in assessing climate change impacts

Worldwide, there is a need to enhance our understanding of vulnerability and to develop methodologies and tools to assess vulnerability. One of the most important goals of assessing coastal flood vulnerability, in particular, is to create a readily understandable link between the theoretical concepts of flood vulnerability and the day-to-day decision-making process and to encapsulate this link in an easily accessible tool. This article focuses on developing a Coastal City Flood Vulnerability Index (CCFVI) based on exposure, susceptibility and resilience to coastal flooding. It is applied to nine cities around the world, each with different kinds of exposure. With the aid of this index, it is demonstrated which cities are most vulnerable to coastal flooding with regard to the system??s components, that is, hydro-geological, socio-economic and politico-administrative. The index gives a number from 0 to 1, indicating comparatively low or high coastal flood vulnerability, which shows which cities are most in need of further, more detailed investigation for decision-makers. Once its use to compare the vulnerability of a range of cities under current conditions has been demonstrated, it is used to study the impact of climate change on the vulnerability of these cities over a longer timescale. The results show that CCFVI provides a means of obtaining a broad overview of flood vulnerability and the effect of possible adaptation options. This, in turn, will allow for the direction of resources to more in-depth investigation of the most promising strategies.     

Regional flood frequency modeling for a large basin in India

The computation of flood magnitude and its likely occurrence to design different hydraulic structures are major challenges to the research community. The present study has been carried out to identify the homogeneous regions in the Mahanadi basin in Chhattisgarh part (data from 26 gauge/discharge sites) of India using conventional and clustering-based homogeneity tests and then computation and identification of probability-weighted moment and L-moment-based best regional distributions for different regions. Different simple to complex distributions like Extreme Value-I, Generalized Extreme Value, Logistic, Generalized Logistic, Generalized Pareto, Normal and Log-normal, Wakeby-4, and Wakeby-5 was used in the analysis through standardizing procedure to compute regional distributions. The best-fit distribution selected by simulating several series and compute L-kurtosis along with the L-moment ratio diagram. The homogeneity analysis confirmed that this basin can broadly be divided into two different homogeneous regions with 15 and 11 stations in the first (Region-1) and second (Region-2) regions, respectively. The GEV distribution was found best suited for Region-1 while the Generalized Pareto worked well for Region-2. To make results more convenient for field application, catchment area-based equations were converted in the form of Dicken’s or Ryve’s formulae for these regions to estimate flood quantiles of any return period.

     

Evaluation of rainfall spatial correlation effect on rainfall-runoff modeling uncertainty,considering 2-copula

Lack of accuracy of rainfall-runoff simulation (RRS) remains critical for some applications. Among various sources of uncertainty, precipitation plays a particular role. Rainfall rates as the main input data of RRS are of the first factors controlling the accuracy. In addition to the depth, spatial and temporal distributions of rainfall impact the flood discharge. Most of the previous studies on RRS uncertainty have ignored rainfall spatial distribution, where in large catchments, it is necessary to be modeled explicitly. Karoon III is one most important basin of the Iran because of the Karoon III dam in the outlet. In the present work, effect of spatial correlation of rainfall on HEC-HMS (SMA) continuous RRS uncertainty is evaluated using 2variate copula (2copula). Monte Carlo simulation (MCS) approach was used to consider the rainfall spatial dependence. To reduce the computational expense, sampling efficiency and convergence for MCS, Latin hypercube sampling (LHS) was used. Copula functions consider wide range of marginal probability distribution functions (PDFs), eliminating limits of regular join PDFs. For this aim, two scenarios were investigated. In the first scenario, sub-basin rainfall was considered independent, and in the second scenario, 2copula was adopted to model spatial correlation of rainfall. Dimensionless rainfall depths were calculated for each sub-basin, and the PDFs were determined. The generated random dimensionless rainfalls were reweighted and multiplied by watershed’s mean rainfall value. Stochastic Climate Library was used to generate continuous daily rainfalls. Sampling from dimensionless rainfalls using LHS algorithm, 100 runs of calibrated model-simulated 100 flows for each day following MCS, and 80 % certainty bound was calculated. Results showed that considering dependence decreased 18 % of the maximum uncertainty bound width, so the methodology could be recommended for decreasing predicted runoff error.     

陆气耦合模型在实时暴雨洪水预报中的应用

采用加拿大区域性中尺度大气模式MC2(Canadian Mesoscale Compressible Community)和新安江模型单向耦合模型系统,对2005年7月4～15日发生在淮河流域的一场暴雨洪水,进行了实时预报.采用王家坝以上流域的实测降水和王家坝断面的实测洪水资料,对MC2预报降水的时空分布和陆气耦合模型预报的洪水过程进行了分析.结果表明,MC2对该场强降水过程具有很好的预报能力,陆气耦合模型有效地增长了洪水预报的预见期,具有很好的应用前景.     

Simulation of a flood producing rainfall event of 29 July 2010 over north-west Pakistan using WRF-ARW model

Simulation of a flood producing rainfall event of 29 July 2010 over north-west Pakistan has been carried out using the Weather Research and Forecasting (WRF) model. This extraordinary rainfall event was localized over north-west Pakistan and recorded 274 mm of rainfall at Peshawar (34.02°N, 71.58°E), within a span of 24 h on that eventful day where monthly July normal rainfall is only 46.1 mm. The WRF model was run with the triple-nested domains of 27, 9, and 3 km horizontal resolution using Kain–Fritsch cumulus parameterization scheme having YSU planetary boundary layer. The model performance was evaluated by examining the different simulated parameters. The model-derived rainfall was compared with Pakistan Meteorological Department–observed rainfall. The model suggested that this flood producing heavy rainfall event over north-west region of Pakistan might be the result of an interaction of active monsoon flow with upper air westerly trough (mid-latitude). The north-west Pakistan was the meeting point of the southeasterly flow from the Bay of Bengal following monsoon trough and southwesterly flow from the Arabian Sea which helped to transport high magnitude of moisture. The vertical profile of the humidity showed that moisture content was reached up to upper troposphere during their mature stage (monsoon system usually did not extent up to that level) like a narrow vertical column where high amounts of rainfall were recorded. The other favourable conditions were strong vertical wind shear, low-level convergence and upper level divergence, and strong vorticity field which demarked the area of heavy rainfall. The WRF model might be able to simulate the flood producing rainfall event over north-west Pakistan and associated dynamical features reasonably well, though there were some spatial and temporal biases in the simulated rainfall pattern.     

Capability of LISEM to estimate flood hydrographs in a watershed with predominance of long-duration rainfall events

Natural Hazards - Process-based hydrological models are of great importance to understand hydrological processes and support decision making. The LImburg Soil Erosion Model (LISEM) requires...     

Land use change increases flood hazard: a multi-modelling approach to assess change in flood characteristics driven by socio-economic land use change scenarios

Natural Hazards - We analysed in the work how change in land use/land cover influences on flood characteristics (frequency and magnitude) using a model inter-comparison approach, statistical...     

Identifying rainfall threshold of flash flood using entropy decision approach and hydrological model method

Natural Hazards - Flash flood disaster, with strong suddenness and tremendous destructiveness, is one of the most severe natural disasters in China that seriously threaten the lives and property...     

Synthetic impact response functions for flood vulnerability analysis and adaptation measures in coastal zones under changing climatic conditions: a case study in Gippsland coastal region,Australia

There is an increasing concern that the current management practices for many coastal regions are unsustainable. Very few countries have planned to deal with the exacerbation of environmental decline in the face of sea level rise. It is therefore necessary to assess socioeconomic and environmental impacts of sea level rises to better understand the vulnerability of coastal zones, as part of devising adaptive and integrated management principles. This paper presents a systematic approach by which relevant stakeholders can be actively engaged in prioritising flood impact issues and deriving information for quantification of impacts for adaptation measures and demonstrates the approach through implementation in the Gippsland coastal region. As outcomes of the project, we have identified key issues of concern for this region for flood impacts and constructed synthetic response functions for quantification of impacts of floods on some of the key issues in the region. The analysis also showed that stakeholders consider that some of the issues are not likely to be significantly affected by floods and thus may not require adaptation measures. The analysis did not provide high agreement on some issues. Different approaches are required to assess the importance of these issues and to establish impact response functions for them.     

Correction to: Application of analytical hierarchy process (AHP) for flood risk assessment: a case study in Malda district of West Bengal,India

Flow pulsations in two-phase and single-phase near-critical fluids are considered as a possible source of ultra-low-frequency seismo-electromagnetic variations. The conditions for generation and suppression of density wave instability in the crust are analyzed and the surface electromagnetic effect due to streaming potential generation is estimated. The upper limit of amplitude of magnetic field variations due to density wave instability is about 0.1 nT for single-phase supercritical and 1 nT for two-phase flow oscillations in the frequency range \(10^{-4}{-}10^{-2}~\) Hz for the temperature gradients and spatial scales possible during strike slip events. The signal is characterized by a decaying amplitude with typical relaxation time of about several quasi-periods. The possibility of generation of very low-frequency flow pulsations in two-phase fluids via individual bubble evolution and interaction with external acoustic waves is discussed.