Inundation Analysis of Coastal Urban Area under Climate Change Scenarios

Abstract

The inundation of urban areas has frequently occurred as a result of the localized heavy precipitation and flash floods in both South Korea and globally. Metropolitan areas with higher property value and population density than rural areas need practical strategies to reduce flood damage. Therefore, this study aims to perform an inundation analysis of coastal urban areas under a climate change scenario. Changwon city is one of the typical coastal metropolitan regions in South Korea. Severe flooding has occurred in this area caused by a combination of precipitation and sea-level rise enhanced by the typhoon, Sanba, in September 2012. At that time, daily precipitation was 65.5 mm, which is lower than the capable amount of rainfall of the drainage system. However, the river stage combined with the tidal wave caused by a typhoon and heavy precipitation exceeded the flood warning level. This study performed the flood inundation analysis for a part of Changwon city using the SWMM model, a two-dimensional urban flood analysis model. Furthermore, we considered the climate change scenarios to predict the potential flood damage that may occur in the future. As a result, as the future target period increases, both the flooding area and the inundation depth increase compared to the results of the inundation simulation according to the current precipitation and sea-level conditions. The inundation area increased by 2.6–16.2% compared to the current state, and the flooded depths would be higher than 1 m or more. We suggest a structural method to reduce inundation damages to consider extreme precipitation and tidal wave effects.