The Downscaling Study for Typhoon-Induced Coastal Inundation

Abstract

Typhoons can often cause inundation in lower coastal cities by inducing strong surges and waves. Being affected by typhoon annually, the coastal cities in South Korea are very vulnerable to typhoons. In 2016, a typhoon ‘CHABA’, with a maximum 10 min sustained wind speed of about 50 m/s and a minimum central pressure of 905 hPa, hit South Korea, suffering tremendous damage. In particular, ‘CHABA’-induced coastal inundation resulted in serious damage to the coastal area of Busan where a lot of high-rise buildings and residential areas are concentrated, and was caused by the combined effect of tide, surge, and wave. The typhoon-induced surge raised sea levels during high tide, and the strong wave with a long period of more than 10 s eventually led to the coastal inundation at the same time. The present research focuses a numerical downscaling considering the effects of tide, surge and wave for coastal inundation induced by Typhoon ‘CHABA’. This downscaling approach applied several numerical models, which are the Weather Research and Forecasting model (WRF) for typhoon simulation, the Finite Volume Community Ocean Model (FVCOM) for tide and surge simulation, and the Simulating WAve Nearshore (SWAN) for wave simulation. In a domain covering the Korean Peninsula, typhoon-induced surges and waves were simulated applying the results simulated by WRF as meteorological conditions. In the downscaled domain ranged near the coastal area of Busan, the coastal inundation was simulated blending a storm tide height and an irregular wave height obtained from the domain, in which each height has 1 s interval. The irregular wave height was calculated using the significant wave height and peak period. Through this downscaling study, the impact of storm tide and wave on coastal inundation was estimated.