Flooding in the Digital Twin Earth: The Case Study of the Enza River Levee Breach in December 2017

Abstract

The accurate delineation of flood hazard maps is a key element of flood risk management policy. Flood inundation models are fundamental for reproducing the boundaries of flood-prone areas, but their calibration is limited to the information available on the areas affected by inundation during observed flood events (typically fragmentary photo, video or partial surveys). In recent years, Earth Observation data have supported flood monitoring and emergency response (e.g., the Copernicus Emergency Service) thanks to the proliferation of available satellite sensors, also at high spatial resolution. Under this umbrella, the study investigates a levee breach that occurred in December 2017 along the Enza River, a right tributary of the Po River, that caused the inundation of a large area including Lentigione village. The flood event is simulated with a 2D hydraulic model using satellite images to calibrate the roughness coefficients. The results show that the processing and the timing of the high-resolution satellite imagery is fundamental for a reliable representation of the flooded area.