HR: 1340h
AN: H43D-1611    [Abstracts]
TI: Flood Response Along a Drainage Network
AU: * Meierdiercks, K L
EM: kmeierdi@princeton.edu
AF: Princeton University, Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering Princeton University, Princeton, NJ 08544, United States
AU: Smith, J A
EM: jsmith@princeton.edu
AF: Princeton University, Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering Princeton University, Princeton, NJ 08544, United States
AU: Miller, A J
EM: miller@umbc.edu
AF: University of Maryland, Baltimore County, Department of Geography and Environmental Systems University of Maryland, Baltimore County, Baltimore, MD 21250, United States
AU: Baeck, M
EM: mlbaeck@princeton.edu
AF: Princeton University, Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering Princeton University, Princeton, NJ 08544, United States
AB: Flooding in urban areas is complex. As water overtops stream banks, it comes into contact with structural obstacles on the land surface, such as bridge constrictions, that dominate flow pathways. Furthermore, at small, or local, spatial scales, other hydraulic controls such as pipe surcharge and stormwater management ponds play a significant role in flood response. A major obstacle towards a better understanding of how these controls impact flood response is the scarcity of data available to characterize them. One watershed where both hydraulic and hydrologic data is available is the Dead Run watershed in Metropolitan Baltimore, Maryland. Dead Run is a research watershed of the Baltimore Ecosystem Study (BES), part of the Long Term Ecological Research network established by the National Science Foundation. Dead Run geospatial data is available through the BES and Baltimore County; hydrologic data was collected by the authors during field campaigns in the 2003-2005 field seasons; and hydraulic information including storm drain pipes, stormwater management ponds, and bridge constrictions was digitized by the author. The availability of this data in Dead Run allows us to detail not only the impact of impervious surfaces and hydrologic forcing on flood response, but also structural aspects of the urban drainage network. In this study, we integrate the three types of observations – geospatial, hydrologic, and hydraulic – to characterize drainage network structure along Dead Run's tributaries. We use these characterizations and the Environmental Protection Agency's Stormwater Management Model (EPA SWMM) to estimate the 10- and 100-year floods over the drainage network. Analyses focus on two extreme floods in Dead Run: the 7 July 2004 and 28 June 2005 events. Results highlight the importance of incorporating drainage network structure into the models we use to predict flooding in urban environments.
DE: 1803 Anthropogenic effects (4802, 4902)
DE: 1817 Extreme events
DE: 1821 Floods
DE: 1847 Modeling
SC: Hydrology [H]
MN: 2007 Fall Meeting