The application of integrated urban inundation model in Republic of Korea

In urban areas with a high building density, features such as roads, buildings and river dykes significantly affect flow dynamics and flood propagation. This should therefore be accounted for in the model set‐up. While 2D hydraulic models of densely urban areas are at the forefront of current research into flood inundation mechanisms, these models are constrained by inadequate parameters of topography and insufficient data. In order to solve these problems, topographic information obtained from digital elevation model (DEM) is directly programmed into the urban inundation model for a densely urban area, without exchanging the input data. In this paper, the extraction of building area is described using a tight coupling approach within a GIS environment, and its influence on the extent of flood inundation with a high building density is estimated. Copyright © 2009 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.