Effects of the temporal resolution of storm data on numerical simulations of urban flood inundation

Abstract

The temporal resolution of storm data plays an important role in constructing reliable inundation simulations. The effects of the temporal resolution of storms with different return periods, peak coefficients, and durations on the simulated flood inundation were investigated with a two-dimensional numerical model. After analysing the modelled inundation peak values and occurrence times, which are affected by the temporal resolution of a storm, the following conclusions were obtained: 1) the accuracy of the simulated inundation results in terms of the peak values and shift times of the storm increases as the temporal resolution of the storm increases; 2) for the same temporal resolution of storm, the accuracy of the simulated inundation in terms of the peak values and shift times increases as the storm return period increases, except for the shift time in the second test case investigated; 3) for the same temporal resolution of storm, the accuracy of the simulated inundation in terms of the peak values and shift times of the storm does not display an obvious correlation with the storm peak coefficient and storm duration; and 4) the most suitable temporal resolution of storm is 15 min for obtaining an accurate numerical simulation of urban flood inundation. These results can help researchers understand the key effects of the temporal resolution of storms on urban flood inundation and identify storm temporal resolutions that can produce relatively accurate simulated inundation results, even without high-temporal-resolution data.