Evaluation of Structural Measures for Flash Flood Mitigation in Wadi Abadi Region of Egypt
Publication: Journal of Hydrologic Engineering
Volume 26, Issue 2
Abstract
Wadis, an Arabic term referring to a wadi, in the Eastern Desert of Egypt have undergone rapid unsustainable development in areas vulnerable to flash flooding and water scarcity. To reduce the risk of damage and loss of life from flash floods to a wadi’s new residents, the priority is to develop mitigation strategies with distributed (watershed scale) or concentrated (localized) mitigation structures to promote sustainable development. The focus of this study is to develop a new approach that will help in assessing various flood mitigation scenarios in Wadi Abadi in the Eastern Desert of Egypt. The proposed approach considers the limited data availability in the wadi system and utilizes spatial analysis and an in-house developed distributed hydrological model, Hydrological River Basin Environmental Assessment Model (Hydro-BEAM), upgraded with a reservoir routing module. Sensitivity analysis of the key Hydro-BEAM model parameters indicated that the most significant parameters controlling the wadi flood peaks are soil thickness and porosity, runoff coefficient, subsurface layer outlet coefficient, and channel roughness. Digital Elevation Model (DEM) data and satellite imagery were utilized to propose the locations and derive design characteristics of the mitigation structures. The mitigation strategies evaluated in this study resulted in a peak flood reduction percentage of 90% and 86% for the distributed and concentrated dam scenarios, respectively. The results show that a group of distributed dams could outperform a single concentrated dam when flood mitigation and water resources management aspects are considered in the wadi region, where the distributed dams scenario has 600% more protected area and 21% more reservoir volume than the concentrated scenario (i.e., use of one dam). However, the concentrated dam scenario may have advantages due to the cost of construction and operations. The proposed approach can assess the flood risk reduction due to different mitigation measures and provide strategies for development and planning in wadi regions.
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Data Availability Statement
Some or all data, models, or codes that support the findings of this study are available from the corresponding author upon reasonable request.
Acknowledgments
This research reported in this study was supported by the Ministry of Education, Culture and Sports (MEXT), Japan and SPIRITS 2017 of Kyoto University. The authors sincerely thank and appreciate Dr. Eng. Salah Shehata, Ministry of Irrigation and Water Resources, Egypt, for his help in the estimation of construction costs of the proposed dams. Professor Ramesh Teegavarap from at Florida Atlantic University (FAU) Boca Raton, Florida, is highly acknowledged for his valuable editing and comments on improving the manuscript.
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Journal of Hydrologic Engineering
Volume 26 • Issue 2 • February 2021
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© 2020 American Society of Civil Engineers.
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Received: Dec 22, 2019
Accepted: Sep 4, 2020
Published online: Nov 28, 2020
Published in print: Feb 1, 2021
Discussion open until: Apr 28, 2021
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