Quasi 2D hydrodynamic modelling of the flooded hinterland due to dyke breaching on the Elbe River

Abstract. In flood modeling, many 1D and 2D combination and 2D models are used to simulate diversion of water from rivers through dyke breaches into the hinterland for extreme flood events. However, these models are too demanding in data requirements and computational resources which is an important consideration when uncertainty analysis using Monte Carlo techniques is used to complement the modeling exercise. The goal of this paper is to show the development of a quasi-2D modeling approach, which still calculates the dynamic wave in 1D but the discretisation of the computational units are in 2D, allowing a better spatial representation of the flow in the hinterland due to dyke breaching without a large additional expenditure on data pre-processing and computational time. A 2D representation of the flow and velocity fields is required to model sediment and micro-pollutant transport. The model DYNHYD (1D hydrodynamics) from the WASP5 modeling package was used as a basis for the simulations. The model was extended to incorporate the quasi-2D approach and a Monte-Carlo Analysis was used to conduct a flood sensitivity analysis to determine the sensitivity of parameters and boundary conditions to the resulting water flow. An extreme flood event on the Elbe River, Germany, with a possible dyke breach area was used as a test case. The results show a good similarity with those obtained from another 1D/2D modeling study.