Toward Flood Routing in Natural Rivers
Publication: Journal of Hydraulic Engineering
Volume 144, Issue 3
Abstract
Floods in rivers can be modeled with one dimensional flood routing methods, which include an approximate solution of the one-dimensional (1D) Saint-Venant momentum equation and a solution of the corresponding mass conservation equation for a storage element representing the river reach. The accuracy of a method applied to a natural river can be improved by introducing an averaged compound section along the reach. But it is shown analytically and numerically that the irregular geometry and hydraulic roughness contribute to the section dimensions. These contributions can be introduced either by the concept of storage areas in the model section or by routing flows along a randomly irregular model of the reach. By compartmentalizing the model section and adopting analytical, parameterized functions for the terrain in each compartment, an optimal section can be obtained by comparing the predicted with the observed hydrographs downstream. The accuracy of the routing method normally increases as the number of parameters is increased for a sequence of standard cross sections. This new method is applied to the River Wye, United Kingdom.
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Acknowledgments
The author is grateful to the U.K. Environment Agency for making data and information about the River Wye available for this study. In addition, he is grateful to Professor M. Perumal for many stimulating conversations on flood routing, and to the reviewers of the original version of this paper whose helpful comments led to the author revising his view of flood routing in natural rivers.
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Information
Published In
Journal of Hydraulic Engineering
Volume 144 • Issue 3 • March 2018
Copyright
©2017 American Society of Civil Engineers.
History
Received: Jun 11, 2016
Accepted: Aug 9, 2017
Published online: Dec 20, 2017
Published in print: Mar 1, 2018
Discussion open until: May 20, 2018
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