Photo: Environment Agency

Review of Hydraulic Flood Modeling Software Used in Belgium, The Netherlands, and The United Kingdom

Daniel Gilles and Matthew Moore

International Perspectives in Water Resource Science and Management

Belgium: Flanders Hydraulics Research• Division of Public Works of the Flemish

Government• Manages waterways, maintains sensor

network and operates countrywide Flood Forecasting System

• Utilizes the MIKE FLOOD WATCH software to release real-time flood forecasting and warning

• River stages are modeled using MIKE 11 and Coupled 1D/2D MIKE Flood Models, status exported to ArcGIS Interface

The Netherlands: Deltares• Dutch –based research institute • Developer of many software

packages: Delft3D, SOBEK, RIBASIM, Delft-FEWS…

• Delft-FEWS is meant to act as a shell to manage external data and exchange data between models

• Currently compatible with HEC-RAS, ISIS, MIKE 11, SOBEK…

• Can be used in stand alone environment, or as a J2EE (JAVA 2) compliant client-server application

• Developed Environment Agency (UK) National Flood Forecasting System using Delft-FEWS

United Kingdom: Environment Agency• Executive Non-departmental Public

Body responsible to the Secretary of State for Environment

• Maintain sensor network (750 rain gauges, 1500 river level/flow sensors, 100 coastal gauges) (Iowa has ~156)

• Operate the National Flood Forecasting System (NFFS) developed from Delft-FEWS, cost to develop system and new models ~ ($2M)

United Kingdom: Environment Agency• Variety of Modeling and Techniques

for forecasting floods• Upstream/downstream river

level correlation• Rainfall to river level correlation

(not accurate, used for farthest upstream gauges)

• Rainfall-runoff modeling• Routing modeling• 1D Hydrodynamic modeling

(ISIS or Mike 11)

Conclusions

• Forecast Centres rely on simple hydraulic models , 1D models being the most detailed used in Real-Time Forecasting

• Inundation mapping products are not available online, warnings are based entirely on river stage at gauge locations

• Development of a wrapper for the various models is a challenge, but may be changing with OpenMI compatible software