Improving American River Flood Frequency Analyses
Improving American River Flood Frequency Analyses

Author: Committee on American River Flood Frequencies

Publisher: National Academies Press

Published: 1999-05-12

Total Pages: 133

ISBN-13: 0309538939

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Sacramento, California, has grown literally at the edge of the Sacramento and American Rivers and for 150 years has struggled to protect itself from periodic floods by employing structural and land management measures. Much of the population lives behind levees, and most of the city's downtown business and government area is vulnerable to flooding. A major flood in 1986 served as impetus for efforts by federal, state, and local entities to identify an acceptable and feasible set of measures to increase Sacramento's level of safety from American River floods. Numerous options were identified in 1991 by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers (USACE) in a report known as the American River Watershed Investigation. Due to the controversial nature of many of the alternatives identified in that report, study participants were not able to reach consensus on any of the flood control options. In response, the Congress directed the USACE to reevaluate available flood control options and, at the same time, asked the USACE to engage the National Research Council (NRC) as an independent advisor on these difficult studies. In 1995 NRC's Committee on Flood Control Alternatives in the American River Basin issued Flood Risk Management and the American River Basin: An Evaluation. This report outlined an approach for improving the selection of a flood risk reduction strategy from the many available.

Flood Risk Management and the American River Basin
Flood Risk Management and the American River Basin

Author: Committee on Flood Control Alternatives in the American River Basin

Publisher: National Academies Press

Published: 1995-10-05

Total Pages: 250

ISBN-13: 0309588391

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This book reviews the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers' (USACE) investigations of flood control options for the American River basin and evaluates flood control feasibility studies for the watershed, with attention to the contingency assumptions, hydrologic methods, and other analyses supporting the flood control options. This book provides detailed comments on many technical issues, including a careful review of the 1991 National Research Council report American River Watershed Investigation, and looks beyond the Sacramento case to broader questions about the nation's approach to flood risk management. It discusses how to utilize information available about flood hazard reduction alternatives for the American River basin, the potential benefits provided by various alternatives, the impacts of alternatives on environmental resources and ecosystems, and the trade-offs inherent in any choice among alternatives which does not lie in the realm of scientists and engineers, but in the arena of public decisionmaking.

Hydrologic and Hydraulic Model Development for Flood Mitigation and Routing Method Comparison in Soap Creek Watershed, Iowa
Hydrologic and Hydraulic Model Development for Flood Mitigation and Routing Method Comparison in Soap Creek Watershed, Iowa

Author: Jingyun Sun

Publisher:

Published: 2015

Total Pages: 138

ISBN-13:

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The primary objective of this thesis is to develop hydrologic and hydraulic models for the Soap Creek Watershed, IA for the evaluation of alternative flood mitigation strategies and the analysis of the differences between hydrologic and hydraulic routing methods. In 2008, the state of Iowa suffered a disastrous flood that caused extensive damage to homes, agricultural lands, commercial property, and public infrastructures. To reduce the flood damage across Iowa, the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) awarded funds to the Iowa Flood Center and IIHR-Hydroscience &Engineering at the University of Iowa to conduct the Iowa Watersheds Project. The Soap Creek Watershed was selected as one of the study areas because this region has suffered frequent severe floods over the past century and because local landowners have organized to construct over 130 flood detention ponds within it since 1985. As part of the Iowa Watersheds Project, we developed a hydrologic model using the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers0́9 (USACE) Hydrologic Center0́9s hydrologic Modeling System (HEC-HMS). We used the hydrologic model to evaluate the effectiveness of the existing flood mitigation structures with respect to discharge and to identify the high runoff potential areas. We also investigated the potential impact of two additional flood mitigation practices within the Soap Creek Watershed by utilizing the hydrologic model, which includes changing the land use and improving the soil quality. The HEC-HMS model simulated 24-hour design storms with different return periods, including 10, 25, 50, and 100 year. The results from modeling four design storms revealed that all three practices can reduce the peak discharge at different levels. The existing detention ponds were shown to reduce the peak discharge by 28% to 40% depending on the choice of observed locations and design storms. However, changing the land use can reduce the peak discharge by an average of only 1.0 %, whereas improving the soil quality can result in an average of 15 % reduction. Additionally, we designed a hydraulic model using the United States Army Corps of Engineers0́9 (USACE) Hydrologic Engineering Center0́9s River Analysis System (HEC- RAS) to perform a comparative evaluation of hydrologic and hydraulic routing methods. The hydrologic routing method employed in this study is the Muskingum Routing method. We compare the historical and design storms between HEC-HMS, HEC-RAS, and observed stage hydrographs and take the hydrograph timing, shape, and magnitude into account. Our results indicate that the hydraulic routing method simulates the hydrograph shape more effectively in this case.