Uncertainty Assessment of Flood Hazard Due to Levee Breaching

Abstract

Water resource management and flood forecasting are crucial societal and financial stakes requiring reliable predictions of flow parameters (depth, velocity), the accuracy of which is often limited by uncertainties in hydrodynamic numerical models. In this study, we assess the effect of two uncertainty sources, namely breach characteristics induced by overtopping and the roughness coefficient, on water elevations and inundation extent. A two-dimensional (2D) hydraulic solver was applied in a Monte Carlo integration framework to a reach of the Loire river (France) including about 300 physical parameters. Inundation hazard maps for different flood scenarios allowed for the highlighting of the impact of the breach development chronology. Special attention was paid to proposing a relevant sensitivity analysis to examine the factors influencing the depth and extent of flooding. The spatial analysis of the vulnerability area induced by a levee breach width exhibits that, with increasing the flood discharge, the rise of the parameter influence is accompanied by a more localized spatial effect. This argues for a local analysis to allow a clear understanding of the flood hazard. The physical interpretation, highlighted by a global sensitivity analysis, showed the dependence of the flood simulation on the main factors studied, i.e., the roughness coefficients and the characteristics of the breaches.