QUANTITATIVE APPROACH TO INFLUENCES OF HIGH SEDIMENT LADEN INUNDATION FLOWS ON THE MORPHOLOGICAL VARIATION OF FLOODPLAINS

This article mainly aims at developing an integrated 2-D numerical simulation model on inundation, sediment transportation and the morphological variations of floodplains due to high sediment-laden inundation flows. Due to the complexity of inner and outer boundaries and the arbitrary structures within the computational domain of floodplains, an unstructured Finite-Volume Method (FVM) based on an irregular polygon mesh was worked out so that the influences of complex boundaries can be integrated into the simulation. A case study was conducted in the Lower Yellow River Basin, in which a dike-break at the Huayuankou Hydrological Station was assumed to happen when a flood scale of 1982 was suffered in the region. The simulated spatial distribution of sediment deposition and erosion can be used to reasonably explain the natural phenomena of “suspended river” of the lower part of the Yellow River. It is concluded that the inundation process of water is similar to a variable-river-bed condition during the simulation because the sediment deposition and erosion are modified by new values at the end of each time step. The mass and momentum conservation were strictly followed during the simulation. Therefore, theprediction of floodplain evolutions by the integrated simulation model, proposed in this study, can be adequately and accurately given if the real condition of an floodplain can be obtained in detail.

QUANTITATIVE APPROACH TO INFLUENCES OF HIGH SEDIMENT LADEN INUNDATION FLOWS ON THE MORPHOLOGICAL VARIATION OF FLOODPLAINS

This article mainly aims at developing an integrated 2-D numerical simulation model on inundation, sediment transportation and the morphological variations of floodplains due to high sediment-laden inundation flows. Due to the complexity of inner and outer boundaries and the arbitrary structures within the computational domain of floodplains, an unstructured Finite-Volume Method (FVM) based on an irregular polygon mesh was worked out so that the influences of complex boundaries can be integrated into the simulation. A case study was conducted in the Lower Yellow River Basin, in which a dike-break at the Huayuankou Hydrological Station was assumed to happen when a flood scale of 1982 was suffered in the region. The simulated spatial distribution of sediment deposition and erosion can be used to reasonably explain the natural phenomena of "suspended river" of the lower part of the Yellow River. It is concluded that the inundation process of water is similar to a variable-river-bed condition during the simulation because the sediment deposition and erosion are modified by new values at the end of each time step. The mass and momentum conservation were strictly followed during the simulation. Therefore, the prediction of floodplain evolutions by the integrated simulation model, proposed in this study, can be adequately and accurately given if the real condition of an floodplain can be obtained in detail.