Water Resources Research Act Program

Details for Project ID 2020ND073B

Flood and Bathymetry Alteration Simulations Under Ice-Coverage in Red River

Institute: North Dakota
Year Established: 2020 Start Date: 2020-02-29 End Date: 2021-02-27
Total Federal Funds: $2,731 Total Non-Federal Funds: $5,462

Principal Investigators: Trung Bao Le

Project Summary: Ice-coverage is a common and dominant factor which influence the hydraulic components throughout the winter in the Northern part of the United States. Red River is a particular streamflow with its direction (through North), at the same time, highly potential to cause flood events in North Dakota. Accordingly, small portion of Red River is specified as the study area for simulations, experiment, and field observation to analyze impacts of ice-coverage on hydraulic components and river bathymetry. The reason of this selection is dense urbanized environment and frequent flood events in the region. Difficulties on field work related to climatic conditions kept this field quite fresh; additionally, a small number of studies have displayed that the impacts of icy condition cannot be neglected. In order to perform numerical simulations to reveal the effects of ice-coverage, 3-D model of the river bathymetry has been created by using sonar device measurements, furthermore, LiDAR data was merged with measurements to bring bank boundaries into certain condition. In the scope of this study, 3-D numerical simulations to clarify the consequences of ice-coverage on river bathymetry and flood events are aimed as a different process from completed studies in the current literature.