Print Email Facebook Twitter Towards a rapid assessment flood forecasting system for the Southern California coast Title Towards a rapid assessment flood forecasting system for the Southern California coast Author Van Engelen, T.E. Contributor Reniers, A.J.H.M. (mentor) De Schipper, M.A. (mentor) Tissier, M.F.S. (mentor) Van Ormond, M. (mentor) Faculty Civil Engineering and Geosciences Department Hydraulic Engineering Date 2016-10-14 Abstract Coastal inundation models are benefited by timeliness of the predictions, not only when it comes to real-time forecasting but also considering risk assessment studies and sensitivity analysis. Numerical models however are often subjected to a trade-off between accuracy and efficiency, especially when dealing with large geographic scales. In this study a new strategy is proposed for simulating storm-induced coastal inundation on dissipative beaches with a simplified shallow-water flow model named SFINCS that is forced with water-level time series along an offshore boundary in the shallow nearshore region. By extending the model domain into the surfzone, the processes of wave runup and overtopping can be simulated in an efficient way using a two-dimensional alongshore-continuous model. SFINCS is validated for a number of one-dimensional and two-dimensional test cases using the process-based Xbeach model as a benchmark for validation. Runup predictions by SFINCS on one-dimensional planar beaches compare well with Xbeach after applying a correction for the short-wave induced setup at the offshore boundary. This correction can be estimated in advance using a newly derived empirical parameterized model. The accuracy of SFINCS in predicting mean overtopping rates on simple beach geometries is comparable to that of empirical models often used in the design of coastal protection works. SFINCS is able to accurately predict the maximum flooding extent for a number of storm scenarios at the case study site of La Jolla along the U.S. coast of Southern California. Predictions of the maximum flood depth correspond well with Xbeach, whereas maximum velocity magnitudes are significantly overestimated locally which can form a limitation for flood damage assessments. Future challenges include the efficient generation of wave boundary conditions for SFINCS and implementation into a larger modeling framework. A revision of the model code, which was tested for the first time in this study, is expected to yield improvements in computational efficiency. Validation using field data and further case studies along the coast of Southern California should provide more insight into the feasibility of a large-scale application of SFINCS. Subject Southern Californiacoastal inundationcoastal floodingflood forecastinginundation modelingSFINCSLa Jolla To reference this document use: http://resolver.tudelft.nl/uuid:cb904f76-8771-42ab-b069-d645f5c8f7d0 Part of collection Student theses Document type master thesis Rights (c) 2016 Van Engelen, T.E. Files PDF master_thesis_Tim_van_Eng ... 017455.pdf 45.55 MB Close viewer /islandora/object/uuid:cb904f76-8771-42ab-b069-d645f5c8f7d0/datastream/OBJ/view