Assessing the retention capacity of a floodplain using a 2D numerical model

Abstract

This paper presents a method for assessing the retention capacity of a floodplain in the course of flooding and for estimating the significance of its water storage for transforming a flood wave. The method is based on two-dimensional numerical modeling of the flood flow in a river channel and in the adjacent floodplains, and is suitable for cases when the morphology of the flooding area is variable and complex, e.g. broad inundation areas with meandering channels. The approach adopted here enables us to quantify the retention capacity for inundation areas of various characters and with various land uses, and provides a tool for estimating the efficiency of possible measures for increasing the water storage capacity of a floodplain. The retention capacity is estimated using an evaluation of a series of detailed flood flow modeling results; the flood wave transformation effect is predicted with the aim of creating a non-linear reservoir model. A parametric study of the floodplain retention capacity for the upper branch of the Lužnice River is presented here, and the results for the current state and for various hypothetical scenarios of changes in geometry and land use are evaluated and compared.