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Spatially distributed observations in constraining inundation modelling uncertainties
Author(s) -
Werner Micha,
Blazkova Sarka,
Petr Jiri
Publication year - 2005
Publication title -
hydrological processes
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.222
H-Index - 161
eISSN - 1099-1085
pISSN - 0885-6087
DOI - 10.1002/hyp.5833
Subject(s) - floodplain , flood myth , environmental science , hydrology (agriculture) , reliability (semiconductor) , geology , geography , geotechnical engineering , cartography , power (physics) , physics , archaeology , quantum mechanics
The performance of two modelling approaches for predicting floodplain inundation is tested using observed flood extent and 26 distributed floodplain level observations for the 1997 flood event in the town of Usti nad Orlici in the Czech Republic. Although the one‐dimensional hydrodynamic model and the integrated one‐ and two‐dimensional model are shown to perform comparably against the flood extent data, the latter shows better performance against the distributed level observations. Comparable performance in predicting the extent of inundation is found to be primarily as a result of the urban reach considered, with flood extent constrained by road and railway embankments. Uncertainty in the elevation model used in both approaches is shown to have little effect on the reliability in predicting flood extent, with a greater impact on the ability in predicting the distributed level observations. These results show that reliability of flood inundation modelling in urban reaches, where flood risk assessment is of more interest than in more rural reaches, can be improved greatly if distributed observations of levels in the floodplain are used in constraining model uncertainties. Copyright © 2005 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.