Estimation of real-time flood risk on roads based on rainfall calculated by the revised method of missing rainfall

Abstract

Recently, flood damage by frequent localized downpours in cities is on the increase on account of abnormal climate phenomena and the growth of impermeable areas due to urbanization. This study suggests a method to estimate real-time flood risk on roads for drivers based on the accumulated rainfall. The amount of rainfall of a road link, which is an intensive type, is calculated by using the revised method of missing rainfall in meteorology, because the rainfall is not measured on roads directly. To process in real time with a computer, we use the inverse distance weighting (IDW) method, which is a suitable method in the computing system and is commonly used in relation to precipitation due to its simplicity. With real-time accumulated rainfall, the flooding history, rainfall range causing flooding from previous rainfall information and frequency probability of precipitation are used to determine the flood risk on roads. The result of simulation using the suggested algorithms shows the high concordance rate between actual flooded areas in the past and flooded areas derived from the simulation for the research region in Busan, Korea.