Flood Inundation Modelling for Mid‐Lower Brisbane Estuary

This study utilizes a two‐dimensional hydrodynamic model to calibrate and validate an inundation model for the Brisbane River estuary in Queensland, Australia. The bathymetry data used in the hydraulic model are derived from one arc second (1 s) shuttle radar topography mission digital elevation model, and the two‐dimensional hydraulic model is parameterized using the generated bathymetry with four open boundaries with water level observations and roughness coefficients. The calibration performance is evaluated by comparing the simulated results with the digitized records during the January 2013 flood event (a low magnitude event) at three gauging stations. The calibrated model is validated with water level data and available discharge data during the January 2011 flood (a large magnitude event) at four gauging stations located along the Brisbane River. Different performance indices are applied to demonstrate that the developed model performs well during calibration and validation. A sensitivity analysis is presented to assess the influence of riverbed elevation changes on the model because the main uncertainty of the model is the bathymetry data. The proposed model with the shuttle radar topography mission digital elevation model‐derived riverbed elevation for the Brisbane estuary is able to predict the flood inundation extent at an accuracy of 66.9% which is higher than or comparable with the accuracies of the existing studies. However, it is expected that the accuracy will increase if some improved bathymetry data become available in the future. Copyright © 2016 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.