HR: 0800h
AN: H11F-0374    [Abstracts]
TI: Rapid-Response Monitoring of Flood Inundation in a Small Urban Watershed
AU: * Miller, A J
EM: miller@umbc.edu
AF: Dept. of Geography and Environmental Systems, UMBC, 1000 Hilltop Circle, Baltimore, MD 21250 United States
AU: Smith, J A
EM: jsmith@princeton.edu
AF: Dept. of Civil and Environmental Engineering, Princeton University, E-209 Engineering Quad, Princeton, NJ 08544 United States
AU: Baeck, M L
EM: mlbaeck@princeton.edu
AF: Dept. of Civil and Environmental Engineering, Princeton University, E-209 Engineering Quad, Princeton, NJ 08544 United States
AU: Holland, E J
AF: Dept. of Civil and Environmental Engineering, Princeton University, E-209 Engineering Quad, Princeton, NJ 08544 United States
AU: Ballantine, M R
AF: Dept. of Geography and Environmental Systems, UMBC, 1000 Hilltop Circle, Baltimore, MD 21250 United States
AU: Newcomer, T A
AF: Dept. of Geography and Environmental Systems, UMBC, 1000 Hilltop Circle, Baltimore, MD 21250 United States
AB: Intense precipitation on July 7, 2004 from a multicell thunderstorm system (approximately 100-130 mm in 50-75 minutes) caused widespread flooding in the highly urbanized 14.3 km$^{2}$ Dead Run watershed, which drains the eastern suburbs of Baltimore. The Dead Run watershed is bisected by a pair of intersecting interstate highways and several other major traffic arteries, and land cover is predominantly commercial, industrial and residential. Reconstruction of flood peaks based on surveyed high-water marks indicates that this event exceeded the previous record set by Hurricane Agnes in 1972 at multiple locations upstream of the official USGS gage at Franklintown. Availability of high-resolution (~30 cm) orthorectified aerial photographs and 1-m lidar topography data allowed rapid deployment of student field crews during the week after this event to generate a flood-inundation map with surveyed high-water elevations for the entire drainage network downstream of the Baltimore Beltway (I-695) and for selected stream reaches upstream of the Beltway. Inundated areas were comparable to those mapped previously using FEMA guidelines as 100- and 500-year floodplain. Partial stage hydrographs recorded at three locations, supplemented by field observations of the time of peak, are used in conjunction with 2d hydraulic modeling analyses to reconstruct the spatial and temporal dynamics of this flood.
DE: 1803 Anthropogenic effects
DE: 1821 Floods
DE: 1860 Runoff and streamflow
SC: Hydrology [H]
MN: 2004 AGU Fall Meeting