In response to environmental changes associated with climate change, two University of Wisconsin professors have joined forces to create a new tool for mapping larger weather events, such as floods or severe rainstorms.
Kenneth Potter, UW civil and environmental engineering professor, and David Liebl, another engineering professor, collaborated on a program that can predict flooding in certain areas and effectiveness of public water systems.
“With climate change, we know that storms are going to increase in magnitude and frequency,” Potter said. “There will be more of them, and they’ll be bigger.”
Using data from a 2008 storm that caused severe flooding of the Baraboo River and the breaching of Lake Delton in the Wisconsin Dells, the professors created a series of rainfall files simulating the 2008 rainfall as if it had taken place over Lake Mendota, Madison and central Dane County.
The results showed Madison would not be prepared to face this level of rainfall or the high flooding that would occur.
“What we saw on the model was that the high water elevation would sustain for a week or 10 days,” Liebl said.
Apart from flooding shutting down traffic from one side of the city to the other, damage sustained downtown would affect the city as a whole.Liebl explained any underground utilities that are flood-proof now may become worn down and damaged over a long period of time, and affect the functionality of Madison’s water systems.
Reducing the amount of rainfall that ends up in Lake Mendota is key in preventing this flooding. Some of the solutions being used on campus and in the city include a volume pollution trading system, green roofs and rain gardens.
On campus, the Facilities Planning and Management office researched which parts of campus are at risk for flooding.
“They’ve done a lot of work to try and change the way rainfall is handled on campus so that more of it is going into rain gardens and green roofs and being held on the landscape rather than draining directly into the lakes,” Liebl said.
The modeling tool developed by Liebl and Potter is not only useful in Dane County. The tool can be used to predict potential flooding across Wisconsin and across the country with the help of local scientists.
“What we’re recommending here could be done anywhere in the world but you have to have people who understand the landscape,” Potter said.“The concept you can take everywhere, the modeling you can take everywhere but understanding the landscape requires local knowledge.”
In regions recently affected by hurricanes, the tool is most useful in planning and development.
The model can be used to predict where flooding may occur, giving builders a better understanding of the land which they plan to develop.
“What we’re doing will be able to identify areas they were not aware might be vulnerable to a flood that would be reasonably likely to occur in a five or 10 year period in the future,” Liebl said. “As communities develop, having that capability allows them in their planning process to think more carefully about how to prevent vulnerability from those type of extreme weather events.”
The simulation can be used to test the effectiveness of public works such as dams, stormwater facilities and underground utilities. Furthermore, the model can also help detect how much water public works would be able to take before failure.
Liebl said both testing effectiveness and detecting the amount of water the public works would be able to take is important in being able to prevent damage that results from flooding.
“Just to be able to think about those things ahead of time would allow them to be able to better prepare and armor their facilities to prevent damage,” Liebl said.
