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- Title
Toward Street‐Level Nowcasting of Flash Floods Impacts Based on HPC Hydrodynamic Modeling at the Watershed Scale and High‐Resolution Weather Radar Data.
- Authors
Costabile, Pierfranco; Costanzo, Carmelina; Kalogiros, John; Bellos, Vasilis
- Abstract
In our era, the rapid increase of parallel programming coupled with high‐performance computing (HPC) facilities allows for the use of two‐dimensional shallow water equation (2D‐SWE) algorithms for simulating floods at the "hydrological" catchment scale, rather than just at the "hydraulic" fluvial scale. This approach paves the way for the development of new operational systems focused on impact‐based flash‐floods nowcasting, wherein hydrodynamic simulations directly model the spatial and temporal variability of measured or predicted rainfall on impacts even at a street scale. Specifically, the main goal of this research is to make a step to move toward the implementation of an effective flash flood nowcasting system in which timely and accurate impact warnings are provided by including weather radar products in the HPC 2D‐SWEs modelling framework able to integrate watershed hydrology, flow hydrodynamics, and river urban flooding in just one model. The timing, location, and intensity of the street‐level evolution of some key elements at risk (people, vehicles, and infrastructures) are also discussed considering both calibration issues and the role played by the spatial and temporal rainfall resolution. All these issues are analyzed and discussed having as a starting point the flood event which hit the Mandra town (Athens, Greece) on the 15 November 2017, highlighting the feasibility and the accuracy of the overall approach and providing new insights for the research in this field. Plain Language Summary: In this study, we try to investigate if there is a potentiality for using a flood simulator, which usually requires a lot of time to give the final results, in order to predict, in real‐time, the flood hazard at the roads of a city. For this reason, we exploited the use of supercomputers, which significantly quickened the simulations and the meteorological forecasting given by a weather radar. According to our findings, there is merit for the proposed approach which can shift the flood awareness from generic instructions to more specific predictions, regarding the place and the time of the flood peak. Key Points: The potential of radar data and high‐performance computing two‐dimensional shallow water equation solvers at the watershed scale for impact‐based flash‐flood nowcasting system is highlightedReliable prediction of water depths within the urban area, with run time 30 times faster than real‐time using a high‐resolution gridRain resolution can affect simulated arrival times, peak and time‐to‐peak values, and street‐level prediction of the effects on a specific target
- Subjects
RADAR meteorology; WATERSHEDS; SHALLOW-water equations; RAINFALL; FLOODS; WATERSHED hydrology; MODELS &; modelmaking
- Publication
Water Resources Research, 2023, Vol 59, Issue 10, p1
- ISSN
0043-1397
- Publication type
Article
- DOI
10.1029/2023WR034599