Investigation of Cellular Automata Method to Urban Flood Modeling

Increasing frequency and intensity of flooding in urban areas have led to serious damage in urban areas. One of the major challenges in urban flood analysis is the two dimensional simulation of surface runoff caused by surcharged flows from urban drainage systems. Thus, development of an urban flood simulation model, which can rout the water flow on complex topography of urban catchments and determine flooded areas with acceptable computational time and accuracy is very important. In this study, a flood simulation model based on cellular automata approach is developed to reduce time and computational effort in compare with other 2D conventional hydraulic models. The developed model performance is compared with HEC-RAS, shallow water equation and TUFLOW models which simulate the water movement using conventional numerical schemes. Also the model’s stability is assessed by considering different time step and mesh size. The obtained results show that the proposed model, using topographic and surface roughness data as inputs, can simulate water movement with acceptable accuracy one- and two-dimensionally. In addition, the computational time is reduced up to roughly 60 times compared to the model which is based on shallow water equations. Increasing frequency and intensity of flooding in urban areas have led to serious damage in urban areas. One of the major challenges in urban flood analysis is the two dimensional simulation of surface runoff caused by surcharged flows from urban drainage systems. Thus, development of an urban flood simulation model, which can rout the water flow on complex topography of urban catchments and determine flooded areas with acceptable computational time and accuracy is very important. In this study, a flood simulation model based on cellular automata approach is developed to reduce time and computational effort in compare with other 2D conventional hydraulic models. The developed model performance is compared with HEC-RAS, shallow water equation and TUFLOW models which simulate the water movement using conventional numerical schemes. Also the model’s stability is assessed by considering different time step and mesh size. The obtained results show that the proposed model, using topographic and surface roughness data as inputs, can simulate water movement with acceptable accuracy one- and two-dimensionally. In addition, the computational time is reduced up to roughly 60 times compared to the model which is based on shallow water equations. Increasing frequency and intensity of flooding in urban areas have led to serious damage in urban areas. One of the major challenges in urban flood analysis is the two dimensional simulation of surface runoff caused by surcharged flows from urban drainage systems. Thus, development of an urban flood simulation model, which can rout the water flow on complex topography of urban catchments and determine flooded areas with acceptable computational time and accuracy is very important. In this study, a flood simulation model based on cellular automata approach is developed to reduce time and computational effort in compare with other 2D conventional hydraulic models. The developed model performance is compared with HEC-RAS, shallow water equation and TUFLOW models which simulate the water movement using conventional numerical schemes. Also the model’s stability is assessed by considering different time step and mesh size. The obtained results show that the proposed model, using topographic and surface roughness data as inputs, can simulate water movement with acceptable accuracy one- and two-dimensionally. In addition, the computational time is reduced up to roughly 60 times compared to the model which is based on shallow water equations. Increasing frequency and intensity of flooding in urban areas have led to serious damage in urban areas. One of the major challenges in urban flood analysis is the two dimensional simulation of surface runoff caused by surcharged flows from urban drainage systems. Thus, development of an urban flood simulation model, which can rout the water flow on complex topography of urban catchments and determine flooded areas with acceptable computational time and accuracy is very important. In this study, a flood simulation model based on cellular automata approach is developed to reduce time and computational effort in compare with other 2D conventional hydraulic models. The developed model performance is compared with HEC-RAS, shallow water equation and TUFLOW models which simulate the water movement using conventional numerical schemes. Also the model’s stability is assessed by considering different time step and mesh size. The obtained results show that the proposed model, using topographic and surface roughness data as inputs, can simulate water movement with acceptable accuracy one- and two-dimensionally. In addition, the computational time is reduced up to roughly 60 times compared to the model which is based on shallow water equations.