Enhanced Simulation of Coastal Compound Flooding through Fully-Coupled
Modeling Framework
Abstract
Coastal watersheds are vulnerable to compound flooding associated with
intense rainfall, storm surge, and high tide. Coastal compound flooding
(CCF) simulation, in particular for low-gradient coastal watersheds,
requires a tight-coupling procedure to represent nonlinear and complex
flood processes and interconnectivity among multidimensional hydraulics
and hydrologic models. This calls for the development of a fully-coupled
CCF modeling framework. Here, the modeling framework is centered around
the development of interconnected meshes of the node-link-basin using
the Interconnected Channel and Pond Routing (ICPR) model. The modeling
framework has been built for a complex drainage network, consisting of
tidal creeks, tidal channels, underground sewer networks, and detention
ponds in Charleston Peninsula, SC. The floodplain dynamics of the
urbanized peninsula are modeled by a high-resolution LiDAR-derived
Digital Elevation Model (DEM) and Digital Surface Model (DSM), and
overland flow is simulated by energy balance, momentum balance, or
diffusive wave methods. The performance of the CCF model is tested for
the 2015 SC major flood and 2021 tidal flood events. The momentum
balance-based CCF model shows 98.35% efficiency in capturing
street-level flooding location and the CCF model depicts that using the
DSM potentially improves the simulation accuracy of the flood by 15-33%
compared to LiDAR DEM. Moreover, it is found the momentum balance
between surge arrival from a tidally influenced river and rainfall
runoff plays an important role in flood dynamics in urbanized
catchments. This study contributes to the existing knowledge of
fine-scale floodplain dynamics in urban areas by enhancing the
fully-coupled numerical representation of CCF processes.