Wide-Area Flood Inundation and Infrastructure Risk Assessment Simulation Framework

D. Judi, A. Kalyanapu, S. Burian, B. Daniel, and T. McPherson (USA)

Keywords

Flood Forecasting Techniques, Impact of Flooding, GIS

Abstract

A simulation environment has been developed for the analysis of the inundation consequences for infrastructure systems from extreme flood events covering wide areas. This decision support architecture includes a GIS-based environment for model building and input parameter estimation, simulation integration tools for meteorological, hydrologic, and infrastructure system models and damage assessment tools for infrastructure systems. The GIS-based environment processes readily available digital elevation models (30-m from the USGS), land use/cover data (30-m NLCD), stream networks from the National Hydrography Dataset (NHD) and soils data from the NRCS (STATSGO) to create stream network, sub-basins, and cross-section shapefiles for river basins selected for analysis. Rainfall predictions are made by a numerical weather model and ingested in gridded format into the simulation environment. Runoff hydrographs are estimated using Green-Ampt infiltration excess runoff prediction and a 1D diffusive wave overland flow routing approach. The hydrographs are fed into the stream network and integrated in a dynamic wave routing module using the EPA’s Storm Water Management Model (SWMM) to predict flood depth. The flood depths are then transformed into inundation maps and exported for damage assessment. Wide-area assessment is provided through batch-run capability semi-automatically simulating inundation from extreme rainfall over numerous river basins covering multiple states.

Important Links:



Go Back