Numerical Investigation of a Flash Flood Process that Occurred in Zhongdu River, Sichuan, China

Abstract

In 2018, a flash flood occurred in the Zhongdu river, which lies in Yibin, Sichuan province of China. The flood caused many casualties and significant damage to people living nearby. Due to the difficulty in predicting where and when flash floods will happen, it is nearly impossible to set up monitors in advance to detect the floods in detail. Field investigations are usually carried out to study the flood propagation and disaster-causing mechanism after the flood’s happening. The field studies take the relic left by the flash flood to deduce the peak level, peak discharge, bed erosion, etc. and further revel the mechanism between water and sediment transport during the flash flood This kind of relic-based study will generate bigger errors in regions with great bed deformation. In this study, we come up with numerical simulations to investigate the flash flood that happened in the Zhongdu river. The simulations are based on two-dimensional shallow water models coupled with sediment transport and bed deformation models. Based on the real water level and discharge profile measured by a hydrometric station nearby, the numerical simulation reproduced the flash flood in the valley. The results show the flood coverage, water level variation, and velocity distribution during the flood. The simulation offers great help in studying the damage-causing process. Furthermore, simulations without considering sediment transport are also carried out to study the impact of bed erosion and sedimentation. The study proved that, without considering bed deformation, the flood may be greatly underestimated, and the sediment lying in the valley has great impact on flood power.