A Probabilistic Approach for Off-Stream Reservoir Failure Flood Hazard Assessment

Abstract

Off-stream reservoirs are hydraulic structures that might cause severe flood damages in case of failure or improper operation. Their safety regulations usually require hydraulic studies for flood hazard and inundation zone mapping. The selection of the break point is not trivial because the topography in its surroundings is commonly highly anthropic. A wrong selection would not provide the worst scenario in terms of maximum flood hazard extent. This work presents a probabilistic approach based on a stochastic definition of the break point along the dyke. A number of failure scenarios are generated automatically, corresponding to different breach formations. Then, an in-cascade calculation process simulates each scenario, providing a framework to carry out statistical analysis. The simulation of the breach formation and the flood wave propagation is performed through a GPU parallelised two-dimensional hydraulic numerical model, which provides a probabilistic inundation zone and flood hazard mapping of all scenarios simulated in a suitable timeframe.

ACROPOLIS: A Graphical User Interface for Classification of Risk for Off-Stream Reservoirs Using Machine Learning

“…The entire process takes approximately 3 minutes, assuming the pre-processing has been completed. According to ACROPOLIS, the risk assessment indicates that 10 houses, 2 material damages, and 1 local road are at risk, leading to a hazard category of A, which aligns with the findings of Sanz-Ramos et al (2023) [8] who conducted risk analysis using several 2D-hydraulic models.…”

“…Additionally, post processing can take up to 26 minutes for a model with around 20000 elements, and then the analysis of classification still needs to be done separately. However, employing a GPU (Graphical Process Unit) can reduce the post processing time to just 2 minutes [8], which makes it a faster but comparatively more time-consuming process than using ACROPOLIS.…”

Design of Drainage Downspouts Systems over a Road Embankment

“…Presently, Iber boasts an integrated suite of calculation modules tailored to simulate a diverse array of environmental fluid phenomena. These encompass hydrological processes [35,36], pollutant transport [37,38], large-wood transport [39,40], dam-break scenarios [41][42][43], eco-hydraulics [44], urban drainage processes [45,46], as well as the release and propagation of snow avalanches [47,48].…”