Reverse flood routing in rivers

Abstract

This study developed model to do riverse flood routing in natural channels. The developed model has basically four components: (1) it expresses an inflow hydrograph by a Pearson Type-III distribution, involving parameters of peak discharge, time to peak, and a shape factor; (2) it employs the basic continutiy equation for flow routing, (3) it relates the storage to downstream flow stage and channel characterictis; and (4) it relates the lateral flow to downstream flow discharge with coefficients. The parameters, coefficients and exponents of the models were obtained using the genetic algorithm method. The developed models are applied to generate upstream hydrographs, using just downstream station information for Ponte Nuovo and Monte Molino river reach of 30.8 km distance within the same basin where the wave travel time is 3h and drainage area is about 1135 km(2). Inflow hydrographs were generated and compared against the observed ones. The model simulation of inflow hydrographs were satisfactory.