Analysis of one-dimensional modelling for flood routing in compound channels

In this paper a number of hydraulic aspects concerning the flood routing in compound channels are discussed. In particular, attention is firstly focused on the management of boundary conditions for compound channel flow when 1D modelling is used. In this context, the characteristics theory was used to obtain the complete expression of the eigenvalues of the system and the consequences of the simplification associated to the commonly-used approximation were highlighted. The analysis has shown that the number of physical conditions to be imposed at the boundaries is influenced not only by the Boussinesq coefficient but also by its derivative over the water level. The second part of the paper is devoted to the analysis of unsteady flow simulations. Attention was focused on the role played by the lateral momentum transfer, between main channel and floodplains, within the 1D flood propagation model. In particular, the simulations showed that significant differences may occur between the traditional approach and the methods able to take into account the momentum transfer mechanisms.