Overland flow computations in urban and industrial catchments from direct precipitation data using a two-dimensional shallow water model

Abstract

This paper presents the experimental validation and the application to a real industrial catchment of a two-dimensional depth-averaged shallow water model used for the computation of rainfall-runoff transformation from direct precipitation data. Instead of using the common approach in flood inundation modelling, which consists in computing the water depth and velocity fields given the water discharge, in this study the rainfall intensity is imposed directly in the model, the surface runoff being generated automatically. The model considers infiltration losses simultaneously with flow simulation. Gullies are also included in the model, although the coupling between the surface runoff and the sewer network is not considered. Experimental validation of the model is presented in several simplified laboratory configurations of urban catchments, in which the surface runoff has been measured for different hyetographs. The application to a real industrial catchment includes a sewer network flow component, which is solved with the SWMM model. The numerical predictions of the discharge hydrograph generated by a 12 hours storm event are compared with field measurements, providing encouraging results.

A simple and efficient unstructured finite volume scheme for solving the shallow water equations in overland flow applications

“…Two-dimensional shallow water models (also known as dynamic wave models) are increasingly used in the computation of overland flow and rainfall-runoff transformation in urban and meso-scale rural basins [Cea et al, 2010b;Costabile et al, 2012;Howes et al, 2006;Hunter et al, 2007Hunter et al, , 2008Kivva and Zheleznyak, 2005;Sanders et al, 2008;Schubert et al, 2008]. Although kinematic and diffusive wave models have been traditionally preferred for these applications due to their lower computational cost when applied at the catchment scale, it has been recognized that the diffusive wave (DW) equation presents a series of inconveniences in comparison to the dynamic wave equation due to the fact of neglecting the inertial terms in the momentum balance Costabile et al, 2012].…”

Validation of a 1D-2D dual drainage model under unsteady part-full and surcharged sewer conditions

“…A detailed description of the numerical schemes implemented in the surface drainage model has already been presented in previous publications by the authors (Cea & Vázquez-Cendón, 2012) and is not included here. The numerical model has been validated under overland flow conditions, including rainfall-runoff transformation, in Cea et al (2010aCea et al ( , 2010bCea et al ( , 2014, where it has proved to efficiently deal with some of the main numerical difficulties that appear in the modelling of overland flow, including the presence of highly unsteady wet -dry fronts, shallow water depths, and high bed friction.…”

A GPU-Accelerated Shallow-Water Scheme for Surface Runoff Simulations

“…The numerical distributed simulation of overland and open-channel flows has been studied since the early Seventies ( [1][2][3]), and is being increasingly used to better model and understand the transient flow dynamics of flash floods [4][5][6][7][8][9][10][11][12][13]. These flash floods are generally characterized by rapidly varying overland flows as a consequence of fast and complex watershed response to intense rainfall.…”