Urban Rainfall Analysis and Flood Management

A special issue of Water (ISSN 2073-4441). This special issue belongs to the section "Urban Water Management".

Deadline for manuscript submissions: closed (30 May 2019) | Viewed by 22906

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School of Engineering and Architecture, University of Enna “Kore”, Cittadella Universitaria, 94100 Enna, Italy
Interests: integrated urban water systems; wastewater treatment plant management and optimization; advanced water treatment; oily and salty water treatment; energy management in integrated water systems
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University of Exeter, Mail Room, The Old Library, Prince of Wales Road, Exeter, Devon, UK
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Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

Economic and demographic growth is placing increasing pressure on urban catchments with the extension of impervious areas and the concentration of population and economic activities. All these factors increase the risk and the potential damage connected to urban flooding and may amplify the effects of climate change. In the last decades, such topics have been largely discussed in the scientific community, with related efforts in the identification and estimation of potential future climatic trends. In urban areas, such studies have to be linked with the investigation of urbanization trends, the definition of more detailed numerical models able to simulate the complexity of flooding propagation in urban areas, the estimation of expected damage and its connection with flooding characteristics such water depth, velocity and energy.

This Special Issue focuses on presentations and discussion of recent studies, new methods, original papers and review articles that describe the current state of the art on the challenges related to urban rainfall analysis and flood management.

Potential topics include but are not limited to the following:

Urban rainfall analysis and monitoring: studies related to rainfall analysis, the identification and estimation of climate trends on intense rainfall events, rainfall monitoring, new sensors, uncertainty connected with rainfall measurements and estimation.

Urban floods modelling: urban areas are always complex numerical domains usually requiring large computational efforts to obtain reliable results; for this reason, papers presenting new modelling approaches and/or the reliability analysis of current models are welcome.

Data uncertainty: urban flood analysis reliability relies on data quality (including rainfall measurements, topographic information, data on drainage infrastructures and potentially impacted elements. The Special Issue welcomes research related to the impact of data quality on flooding analysis and management, including reports from case studies, emergency management, design for flooding.

Flooding management strategies: challenges and advances in urban flood management; practical experiences of urban flood management; communication actions; retrofitting strategies for existing urban areas; sensitization of local communities; land consumption mitigation; emergency response and plans.


Prof. Dr. Gabriele Freni

Dr. Lorena Liuzzo
 
Guest Editors
 

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Keywords

  • Urban rainfall
  • Climate change
  • Flooding modelling
  • Uncertainty analysis
  • Flood management
  • Land consumption
  • Climatic trend analysis
  • Flooding expected damage

Published Papers (5 papers)

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15 pages, 4992 KiB  
Article
Quantifying the Uncertainty Related to Climate Change in the Assessment of Urban Flooding—A Case Study
by Lorena Liuzzo and Gabriele Freni
Water 2019, 11(10), 2072; https://doi.org/10.3390/w11102072 - 04 Oct 2019
Cited by 4 | Viewed by 2781
Abstract
Recent studies have pointed out that climate change is likely to have important implications on the extent and frequency of flooding events. Indeed, the intensification of the water cycle occurring in different areas of the world can dramatically affect the incidence of extreme [...] Read more.
Recent studies have pointed out that climate change is likely to have important implications on the extent and frequency of flooding events. Indeed, the intensification of the water cycle occurring in different areas of the world can dramatically affect the incidence of extreme events and, consequently, the flow in rivers or artificial channels, increasing the probability of disastrous floods. In this context, the criteria for the assessment of flood risk need to be improved to take into account the variability of rainfall due to climate change. In this study, a Bayesian procedure was used to update the parameters of the depth–duration–frequency (DDF) curves and quantify the uncertainty related to their assessment in some climate change scenarios. The critical storm obtained from these updated DDF curves was used as input for the FLO-2D hydraulic model, in order to investigate the effects of climate change on flood risk. The area of study was an urban catchment in Piazza Armerina, a small town located in Southern Italy. Results showed that rainfall variations remarkably affect not only the magnitude of flood events, but also the flood susceptibility of the study area. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Urban Rainfall Analysis and Flood Management)
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14 pages, 3203 KiB  
Article
Estimation of Storm-Centred Areal Reduction Factors from Radar Rainfall for Design in Urban Hydrology
by Søren Thorndahl, Jesper Ellerbæk Nielsen and Michael R. Rasmussen
Water 2019, 11(6), 1120; https://doi.org/10.3390/w11061120 - 29 May 2019
Cited by 14 | Viewed by 4830
Abstract
In the design practice of urban hydrological systems, e.g., storm-water drainage systems, design rainfall is typically assumed spatially homogeneous over a given catchment. For catchments larger than approximately 10 km2, this leads to significant overestimation of the design rainfall intensities, and [...] Read more.
In the design practice of urban hydrological systems, e.g., storm-water drainage systems, design rainfall is typically assumed spatially homogeneous over a given catchment. For catchments larger than approximately 10 km2, this leads to significant overestimation of the design rainfall intensities, and thus potentially oversizing of urban drainage systems. By extending methods from rural hydrology to urban hydrology, this paper proposes the introduction of areal reduction factors in urban drainage design focusing on temporal and spatial scales relevant for urban hydrological applications (1 min to 1 day and 0.1 to 100 km2). Storm-centred areal reduction factors are developed based on a 15-year radar rainfall dataset from Denmark. From the individual storms, a generic relationship of the areal reduction factor as a function of rainfall duration and area is derived. This relationship can be directly implemented in design with intensity–duration–frequency curves or design storms. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Urban Rainfall Analysis and Flood Management)
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20 pages, 3059 KiB  
Article
Assessing Hydrological Effects of Bioretention Cells for Urban Stormwater Runoff in Response to Climatic Changes
by Mo Wang, Dongqing Zhang, Siwei Lou, Qinghe Hou, Yijie Liu, Yuning Cheng, Jinda Qi and Soon Keat Tan
Water 2019, 11(5), 997; https://doi.org/10.3390/w11050997 - 13 May 2019
Cited by 25 | Viewed by 3532
Abstract
An investigation into the effectiveness of bioretention cells (BCs) under potential climatic changes was conducted using representative concentration pathways. A case study of Guangzhou showed changes in peak runoff in climate change scenarios, with obvious growth in RCP8.5 and slight growth in RCP2.6. [...] Read more.
An investigation into the effectiveness of bioretention cells (BCs) under potential climatic changes was conducted using representative concentration pathways. A case study of Guangzhou showed changes in peak runoff in climate change scenarios, with obvious growth in RCP8.5 and slight growth in RCP2.6. The performance of BCs on multiple parameters, including reduction of runoff volume, peak runoff, and first flush, were examined in different design storms using a hydrology model (SWMM). The effectiveness of BCs varied non-linearly with scale. Their performance fell by varying amounts in the various scenarios. BCs could provide sufficient effects in response to short-return-period and short-duration storms, but the performance of BCs decreased with heavy storms, especially considering climate change. Hence, BCs cannot replace grey infrastructure but should be integrated with them. The method developed in this study could be useful in the planning and design of low impact development in view of future climate changes. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Urban Rainfall Analysis and Flood Management)
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18 pages, 8858 KiB  
Article
Real-Time Urban Inundation Prediction Combining Hydraulic and Probabilistic Methods
by Hyun Il Kim, Ho Jun Keum and Kun Yeun Han
Water 2019, 11(2), 293; https://doi.org/10.3390/w11020293 - 08 Feb 2019
Cited by 31 | Viewed by 4759
Abstract
Damage caused by flash floods is increasing due to urbanization and climate change, thus it is important to recognize floods in advance. The current physical hydraulic runoff model has been used to predict inundation in urban areas. Even though the physical calculation process [...] Read more.
Damage caused by flash floods is increasing due to urbanization and climate change, thus it is important to recognize floods in advance. The current physical hydraulic runoff model has been used to predict inundation in urban areas. Even though the physical calculation process is astute and elaborate, it has several shortcomings in regard to real-time flood prediction. The physical model requires various data, such as rainfall, hydrological parameters, and one-/two-dimensional (1D/2D) urban flood simulations. In addition, it is difficult to secure lead time because of the considerable simulation time required. This study presents an immediate solution to these problems by combining hydraulic and probabilistic methods. The accumulative overflows from manholes and an inundation map were predicted within the study area. That is, the method for predicting manhole overflows and an inundation map from rainfall in an urban area is proposed based on results from hydraulic simulations and uncertainty analysis. The Second Verification Algorithm of Nonlinear Auto-Regressive with eXogenous inputs (SVNARX) model is used to learn the relationship between rainfall and overflow, which is calculated from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s Storm Water Management Model (SWMM). In addition, a Self-Organizing Feature Map (SOFM) is used to suggest the proper inundation area by clustering inundation maps from a 2D flood simulation model based on manhole overflow from SWMM. The results from two artificial neural networks (SVNARX and SOFM) were estimated in parallel and interpolated to provide prediction in a short period of time. Real-time flood prediction with the hydraulic and probabilistic models suggested in this study improves the accuracy of the predicted flood inundation map and secures lead time. Through the presented method, the goodness of fit of the inundation area reached 80.4% compared with the verified 2D inundation model. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Urban Rainfall Analysis and Flood Management)
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14 pages, 1289 KiB  
Technical Note
Physical Parameterization of IDF Curves Based on Short-Duration Storms
by Alfonso Gutierrez-Lopez, Sergio Bernardo Jimenez Hernandez and Carlos Escalante Sandoval
Water 2019, 11(9), 1813; https://doi.org/10.3390/w11091813 - 30 Aug 2019
Cited by 7 | Viewed by 6124
Abstract
Intensity–duration–frequency (IDF) curves are empirical mathematical formulations that have been used for years in engineering for planning, design, and operation of hydraulic projects. The expression proposed by Sherman (1931) has been validated and used largely by many researchers. In all cases, the four [...] Read more.
Intensity–duration–frequency (IDF) curves are empirical mathematical formulations that have been used for years in engineering for planning, design, and operation of hydraulic projects. The expression proposed by Sherman (1931) has been validated and used largely by many researchers. In all cases, the four parameters of this formulation are obtained through a numerical procedure. Although these parameters are obtained from historical rainfall observations, the optimization of these parameters implies an infinite combination between them and all those solutions would be valid. Of the four parameters, only one of them (C) has units, and for this reason, a physical sense of parameter C is searched for. Having certainty that some of them can be measured in situ would represent a great advance for modern hydrology. With data from 523 storms monitored every minute, a parametric adjustment was made to the Sherman equation and the typical duration of storms at each site was also obtained. To demonstrate how rainfall intensities vary with the change in C value, rainfall intensities calculations for of 5, 10, 15, and 20 min rainfall duration are used to validate the proposed methodology. The results show that typical storm duration is correlated with the additive parameter of Sherman’s formula. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Urban Rainfall Analysis and Flood Management)
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