Simulation of Inundation Zone triggered by Dam Failure using FLO-2D

Abstract:

Floods due to gradual dam breach can lead to devastating disasters with tremendous loss of life and property. Hence it is important to identify the potential risk areas for natural hazard problem such as dam failure. A numerical modeling approach is often used to build a flood hazard map caused by dam failure. The two primary tasks in the analysis of a dam breach are the prediction of the reservoir outflow hydrograph and the routing of the hydrograph through the downstream valley. The hydrograph to be routed downstream may be prescribed, and parametric models could be used to build a outflow hydrograph once breach parameters capturing breach formation and progress are specified. Even though breach growth is one of the most important parameter in building the reservoir outflow hydrograph, observations are rarely available. In the mean while lake level data is often measured during the dam failure on the real time basis and they may capture the characteristics of breach formation and progress. Thus a simple method is developed to reproduce breach formation. The breach formation is retrieved from lake level data as a function of time during dam failure event. The new method uses an optimization scheme as a primary tool. Because observation for breach formation doesn’t exist, it is hard to validate the performance of the new method. Alternatively the retrieved breach formation curve is linked with a parametric dam failure model to give outflow hydrograph. Then FLO-2D is run to route the outflow hydrograph through the downstream valley for the test site. To validate the new method the simulation of FLO-2D is relatively compared with the on-site investigation for the inundation zone. The new method is promising in that it provides reasonable accuracy in the test site.

Keywords: Dam failure, Natural hazard, Breach, Hydrograph

Acknowledgement

This research was supported by a grant (13SCIPS01) from Smart Civil Infrastructure Research Program funded by Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport(MOLIT) of Korea government and Korea Agency for Infrastructure Technology Advancement(KAIA).