Author(s): Sara Alonso-Vicario; Elena Ridolfi; Chiara Arini; Leonardo Alfonso
Linked Author(s):
Keywords: River cross-sections; Entropy; Hydraulic modelling; Information theory; Magdalena River; Optimization
Abstract: Accurate flood propagation and inundation models are crucial in flood risk assessments. For fast flowing rivers such as the Magdalena River (Colombia) with high vulnerability and exposure rates is even more essential. Indeed, floods in Magdalena River account for 90% of the damages and 70% of the causalities in Colombia. River cross-sectional information (i. e. their number and spacing) must be optimally selected to properly capture river’s hydraulic behaviour. Optimization is a powerful tool for doing such selection often necessary to increase the efficiency of field works and decrease model simulation time. A methodology based on the entropy concept provides interesting results in agreement with those proposed in literature. The optimization method proposes the use of two concepts belonging to information theory: the joint entropy and total correlation. Total correlation quantifies the redundancy of cross-sections; joint entropy provides their information content. This approach is being applied to a reach of the Magdalena River. This study analyses the interrelation between the location of the optimal set of cross-sections and the hydraulic behaviour of the Middle-Magdalena River. Further work considers the evaluation of model performance with the optimized cross-sections, where no negative impacts on the reliability of flood profiles with respect to the original model are expected.
Year: 2018