Water Resources Systems Planning and Management: Water Resources Systems Modeling Floodplain Management

MODULE - 8 LECTURE NOTES 5 FLOODPLAIN MANAGEMENT INTRODUCTION A floodplain can be defined as the land adjacent to the river or stream that is subjected to occasional or periodic flooding. It acts as a conveyance or temporary storage for flood flows. The main objective of flood control is to reduce the negative consequences of floods. Flood control is normally done by constructing structural measures such as reservoirs, diversions etc or by nonstructural measures such as flood warning, flood proofing etc. In short, floodplain management comprises all engineering, nonstructural and administrative measures to minimize the losses due to flooding. In this lecture, we will discuss about various flood control measures and the analysis of damages from floods.

FLOOD CONTROL MEASURES Flood control measures can be broadly classified into (1) structural and (2) nonstructural measures. Basically, three functional relationships are assessed to determine the value of these flood control alternatives. These are (1) Stage-damage relationships which give the flood severity in terms of damage cost at various stages; (2) Stage-discharge relationships (or rating curves) and (3) Flood frequency relationships which give the recurrence interval vs. flood magnitude. These relationships without any control measures are shown in figure 1. Flood control measures modify one or more of these relationships to reduce the damage due to flood.

Damage Discharge Exceedance frequency cost Fig. 1 Functional relationships for flood assessment (Source: U.S. Army Corps of Engineers Hydrologic Engineering Center)

D Nagesh Kumar, IISc, Bangalore

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Water Resources Systems Planning and Management: Water Resources Systems Modeling Floodplain Management

Structural measures: This includes flood control reservoirs, diversion structures, levees and channel modifications. Flood control reservoirs store flood waters and release it subsequently after the flood event, thus reducing the magnitude of peak discharge. The frequency relationship is modified due to the decrease in the peak event as shown in figure 2. However, long term use modify the stream regime and can result in channel degradation at downstream sections, thereby changing the rating curve. Changes in the rating curve is indicated through dotted lines.

Damage Discharge Exceedance frequency cost Fig. 2 Effect of reservoir (Source: U.S. Army Corps of Engineers Hydrologic Engineering Center)

Diversion structures divert flood flows from damage centers, thus reducing the peak flows at those places. These structures also modify the frequency curve as shown in figure 3. Other two relationships are not altered.

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Damage Discharge Exceedance frequency cost Fig. 3 Effect of diversion structures (Source: U.S. Army Corps of Engineers Hydrologic Engineering Center)

Levees keep flood flows from flood plains damage centers. It reduces the damage in protected areas from water surface stages in the main channel. This modifies the stagedamage relationship by truncating it at a stage equal to the design elevation of levee as shown
D Nagesh Kumar, IISc, Bangalore M8L5

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Water Resources Systems Planning and Management: Water Resources Systems Modeling Floodplain Management

on figure 4. The conveyance area of the flood water is reduced due to the obstruction from levee, which in turn results in increased stages for discharges. Hence, stage-discharge relationship is shifted upward. This will also result in increase in downstream peak discharge, thereby shifting the frequency curve upward.

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Damage Discharge Exceedance frequency cost Fig. 4 Effect of levee (Source: U.S. Army Corps of Engineers Hydrologic Engineering Center) Channel modifications improve the conveyance characteristics, lowering the stage for a particular discharge, thereby lowering the stage-discharge relationship as shown in figure 5. The peak discharges are passed through at low stages decreasing the effect of natural valley storage during a flood. This results in high peak discharges downstream which causes an upward shift in the frequency curve.

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Damage Discharge Exceedance frequency cost Fig. 5 Effect of channel modification (Source: U.S. Army Corps of Engineers Hydrologic Engineering Center)

Nonstructural measures: These include flood proofing, flood warning and land use controls. Flood proofing modify the damage potential of structure exposed to flood damage. This includes elevating structures, water proofing exterior walls, rearranging the structural work space etc. It shifts the stagedamage relationship upward as shown in figure 6.
D Nagesh Kumar, IISc, Bangalore M8L5

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Water Resources Systems Planning and Management: Water Resources Systems Modeling Floodplain Management

Flood warning reduces the damage by providing prior notice to the flood plain inhabitants. The lead time provides time to do minor flood proofing, or to remove the property susceptible to flooding. This needs real time forecasting and communication facilities. Land use controls include many administrative actions such as zoning, building ordinances, building codes etc.

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Damage Discharge Exceedance frequency cost Fig. 6 Effect of flood proofing (Source: U.S. Army Corps of Engineers Hydrologic Engineering Center)

ESTIMATION OF FLOOD DAMAGE Damages from floods may be classified as: (i) direct damage from properties (ii) indirect damage from lost services and businesses, rerouting traffic etc. (iii) secondary damages from hardships to those depend on the outputs from the damaged properties or hindered services (iv) intangible damages like environmental quality, social well-being and aesthetic values and (v) uncertainty damages due to uncertainty in flooding. The most common method for flood damage assessment is through empirical depth-damage curves. Individual or aggregated estimates of stage vs. damage curves for the crops, structures, roads, utilities etc. in the floodplain need to be prepared through a property suvery of the whole floodplain. The stage damage relationship is then related with the stage discharge relationship to derive the damage discharge relationship. This is further related with the discharge frequency relationship to derive the damage frequency relationship. This is illustrated in figure 7.

D Nagesh Kumar, IISc, Bangalore

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Water Resources Systems Planning and Management: Water Resources Systems Modeling Floodplain Management

Stage

Damage cost Damage Stage Relation

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Discharge Discharge Damage Discharge Relation Exceedance frequency Discharge - Frequency Relation Damage

Exceedance frequency

Damage - Frequency Relation

Fig. 7 Estimation of damages (Source: U.S. Army Corps of Engineers Hydrologic Engineering Center)

HEC FLOOD DAMAGE ANALYSIS PACKAGE Hydrologic Engineering Center Flood Damage Analysis (HEC-FDA) by U.S. Army Corps of Engineers is a package of hydrologic, hydraulic and flood damage programs linked to data
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Water Resources Systems Planning and Management: Water Resources Systems Modeling Floodplain Management

storage system. The data storage system called HECDSS transfers data automatically between the programs linked to it. The package contains three hydrologic and hydraulic programs, five flood damage analysis programs, three data management programs and a library of data management software. (i) Hydrologic analysis programs: (a) HEC-1: Flood hydrograph package. It simulates rainfall-runoff, simple reservoirs and hydrologic channel routing. It develops existing, without and modified flow frequency curves. (b) HEC-2: Water surface profiles. It computes steady-state, uniform flow profiles. It is used to develop elevation-flow rating curves (c) HEC-5: Simulates flood control and conservation systems, complex reservoirs. It develops existing, without and modified flow frequency curves. (ii) Flood damage analysis programs: (a) Structural Inventory for Damage (SID) analysis: It processes inventories of structures in the flood plain and develops elevation damage relationships. (b) Structural Inventory for Damage Analysis Edit Program: It edits the structure inventory and damage function files for SID program. (c) Damage Reach State-Damage Calculation (DAMCAL): It is same as SID, except develops elevation damage relationships for a geographic unit. (d) Expected Annual Damage (EAD): It computes expected annual damage and compares flood damage mitigation plans. (e) FDA2PO: It computes the reference flood elevation at structure and stores stage-flow rating curves. (iii)Data management programs (a) Paired-function Input Program (PIP): Inputs paired function relationship to a data storage system (DSS) data file. (b) DSSUTL: Performs utility functions on data stored in the HEC-DSS data file. (c) DSPLAY: Displays tables and plots in HEC-DSS data file.

D Nagesh Kumar, IISc, Bangalore

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