Integration of 2-D hydraulic model and high-resolution LiDAR-derived DEM for floodplain flow modeling

Abstract

Abstract. The rapid progress of Light Detection And Ranging (LiDAR) technology has made acquirement and application of high-resolution digital elevation model (DEM) data increasingly popular, especially with regards to the study of floodplain flow modeling. High-resolution DEM data include many redundant interpolation points, needs a high amount of calculation, and does not match the size of computational mesh. These disadvantages are a common problem for floodplain flow modeling studies. Two-dimensional (2-D) hydraulic modeling, a popular method of analyzing floodplain flow, offers high precision of elevation parameterization for computational mesh while ignoring much micro-topographic information of the DEM data itself. We offer a flood simulation method that integrates 2-D hydraulic model results and high-resolution DEM data, enabling the calculation of flood water levels in DEM grid cells through local inverse distance weighted interpolation. To get rid of the false inundation areas during interpolation, it employs the run-length encoding method to mark the inundated DEM grid cells and determine the real inundation areas through the run-length boundary tracing technique, which solves the complicated problem of the connectivity between DEM grid cells. We constructed a 2-D hydraulic model for the Gongshuangcha polder, a flood storage area of Dongting Lake, using our integrated method to simulate the floodplain flow. The results demonstrate that this method can solve DEM associated problems efficiently and simulate flooding processes with greater accuracy than DEM only simulations.