Author(s): Kennard Lai, Pierre Y. Julien
Linked Author(s): Kennard Lai
Keywords: Hydraulic modeling, remote sensing, google earth, street view, HEC-RAS
Abstract: This article explores the usage of Google Earth features in developing a hydraulic model. The authors share their experience of using Google Earth's satellite images and Street View images as new remote sensing tools to obtain a better understanding of the site through historical images, measure distances, as well as estimate river geometry and roughness. The features are found to be useful especially when modeling a river remotely when frequent site visits are prohibitive and as a supplement to available data. An example is presented where the information obtained from Google Earth is used in HEC-RAS (Hydrologic Engineering Center � River Analysis System) to develop a simple before-and-after hydraulic model to illustrate the effects of a stormwater tunnel outflow during a flood event on the Kerayong River in Malaysia before and after river improvement works has been completed. It is found that Google Earth satellite imagery and Street View features are new tools that can be used to aid in estimating channel geometry and roughness, as well as channel morphology
Year: 2017