A landholder in Sydney's west wanted some insight into changes to major flooding extents if a weir on a 160ha property were removed. Using publicly available LIDAR data and ANU's shallow water equation package ANUGA, floods of various heights were simulated, with existing and altered topography. Results suggested that dry land gains could be expected to be minimal at best.
As part of a final-year cross-disciplinary Advanced Engineering subject at the University of Sydney, this real-world team-based consulting project aimed to gain some understanding of the catchment and hydrology of the site.
The ANUGA package is a free-and-open-source package for modelling tsunami and riverine flooding, with bindings in the Python programming language. It solves the shallow water wave equations with a finite volume scheme and unstructured triangular meshing.
I led the project team in implementing the study, building simulations based on LIDAR data of the existing terrain, and on altered terrain with the weir in question removed. This desktop analysis was benchmarked against existing flood studies of the area, and suggested that the effect of the weir's removal would be minimal.
A video of some of the simulation results is shown below.
The ANUGA package is a free-and-open-source package for modelling tsunami and riverine flooding, with bindings in the Python programming language. It solves the shallow water wave equations with a finite volume scheme and unstructured triangular meshing.
I led the project team in implementing the study, building simulations based on LIDAR data of the existing terrain, and on altered terrain with the weir in question removed. This desktop analysis was benchmarked against existing flood studies of the area, and suggested that the effect of the weir's removal would be minimal.
A video of some of the simulation results is shown below.