Impact of urbanization on desert flash flood generation

Abstract

Desert precipitations are rare but torrential, and ephemeral streams are ungauged, by which synthetic hydrograph methods become essential for flood risk assessment. This study quantifies the impact of urbanization on generating flash floods in desert watersheds. A definition of flash flood was presented in terms of the relative strength of partial storm intensity to storm design frequency for existing stormwater drainage systems. A large desert catchment was chosen to generate synthetic surface runoff hydrograph records using HEC-HMS model. The catchment characteristics were extracted using GIS tools and digital elevation data. Intensity-duration-frequency curves were used for the catchment to simulate hypothetical storms of 24-h duration for different return periods. A sensitivity analysis was performed for curve number parameter to simulate urbanization level scenarios. The results show that it is possible to employ simple models to synthesize the impact of urbanization on desert flash floods with a drastic change in hydrograph peak discharge, time to peak, and runoff volume. The former hydrograph characteristic is found to be the most sensitive, with an increase by 316% in response to increase in curve number by 10%. This finding implies that a small variation in land cover due to urbanization may significantly increase the flash flood strength and potential damage to infrastructure and human life.