Application of Remote Sensing in Floodway Delineation
Issue Date
1974-04-20Keywords
Hydrology -- Arizona.Water resources development -- Arizona.
Hydrology -- Southwestern states.
Water resources development -- Southwestern states.
Remote sensing
Flood plain zoning
Flood protection
Arizona
Aerial photography
Regulation
Flood plains
Geomorphology
Flood data
Maximum probable flood
Instrumentation
Mapping
Surveys
Soils
Soil types
Vegetation
Hydrologic data
Historic floods
Soil horizons
Cochise County (Ariz)
Earth resource technology satellite (ERTS-1)
Metadata
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Copyright ©, where appropriate, is held by the author.Collection Information
This article is part of the Hydrology and Water Resources in Arizona and the Southwest collections. Digital access to this material is made possible by the Arizona-Nevada Academy of Science and the University of Arizona Libraries. For more information about items in this collection, contact anashydrology@gmail.com.Publisher
Arizona-Nevada Academy of ScienceAbstract
Population pressures on the land resources of Arizona have led to the sale and development of areas subject to flooding and because of the inadequacy of land use controls, the area is open to various land speculation schemes and unplanned subdivision growth. A floodplain delineation project was conducted for the planning department of Cochise County, Arizona, in which imagery acquired by earth resources technology satellite (ERT-1) and by high-altitude aircraft was employed. Parameters of the analysis included soils and geomorphology, vegetation, hydrologic calculations, and historical data. Floodplain soils lack developed b horizons, as compared to older, more mature soils not subject to flooding. General soil maps can only be used as guidelines, but a detailed soil survey can add significantly to the accuracy of image interpretations. Erosion-affected soil tones in areas adjacent to active channels proved beneficial in that the heightened contrast served to enhance resolution of vegetation-type boundaries. Hydrologic calculations were done based on valley cross-sections surveyed at two-to-three mile intervals. The historic data input into the system of floodplain delineation is dependent on the location of high-water marks and on obtaining a record of the amount of rainfall which resulted in the high-water mark.ISSN
0272-6106Related items
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Analysis of the National Weather Service soil moisture accounting models for flood prediction in the northeast floods of January 1996(The University of Arizona., 1998)Extensive flooding occurred throughout the northeastern United States during January of 1996. The flood event cost the lives of 33 people and over a billion dollars in flood damage. Following the "Blizzard of '96", a warm front moved into the Mid Atlantic region bringing extensive rainfall and causing significant melting and flooding to occur. Flood forecasting is a vital part of the National Weather Service (NWS) hydrologic responsibilities. Currently, the NWS River Forecast Centers use either the Antecedent Precipitation Index (API) or the Sacramento Soil-Moisture Accounting Model (SAC-SMA). This study evaluates the API and SAC-SMA models for their effectiveness in flood forecasting during this rain-on-snow event. The SAC-SMA, in conjunction with the SNOW-17 model, is calibrated for five basins in the Mid-Atlantic region using the Shuffled Complex Evolution (SCE-UA) automatic algorithm developed at the University of Arizona. Nash-Sutcliffe forecasting efficiencies (Er) for the calibration period range from 0. 79 to 0.87, with verification values from 0.42 to 0.95. Flood simulations were performed on the five basins using the API and calibrated SAC SMA model. The SAC-SMA model does a better job of estimating observed flood discharge on three of the five study basins, while two of the basins experience flood simulation problems with both models. Study results indicate the SAC-SMA has the potential for better flood forecasting during complex rain-on-snow events such as during the January 1996 floods in the Northeast.
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Flood Processes in Semi-arid Streams: Sediment Transport, Flood Routing, and Groundwater - Surface Water Interactions(The University of Arizona., 2007)Flooding in semi-arid streams is highly variable but distinguished from its humid counterpart in terms of forcing conditions, landscape response, flood severity, and stream-aquifer connectivity. These floods have the potential for great benefit in a water-limited environment, but also great devastation when powerful floods encounter human infrastructure. This dissertation employs an integrative approach to address several facets of flooding in semi-arid streams. In particular, information from field sampling during flood events combined with modeling are used to evaluate the processes of post-disturbance sediment transport, flood routing, transient bank storage, and stream disconnection. The major findings show: (1) Suspended sediment composition in floods following wildfire depends on the number, timing, and intensity of preceding storms and flood events, implicating overland flow hillslope processes as a dominant mass wasting mechanism (2) Isotopic chemographs for two representative intense convective storm events demonstrate that the flash flood bore develops from predominantly high elevation event water that overcomes, incorporates, and pushes baseflow to the front of the hydrograph peak (3) Isotope information combined with a plug-flow model can simulate this flood bore mixing process simultaneously in two separate canyons in the basin in order to calculate the timing and quantity of flow; this could be a useful tool for watersheds that are not extensively instrumented, or for calibrating a more complex or distributed model, (4) For a stream connected to an underlying aquifer, a circulation pattern develops at the onset of flooding that causes an upwelling of antecedent water into the unsaturated zone, challenging the assumptions of one dimensional, lateral flow and transport into the streambank, and (5) For small stream-aquifer disconnections, large increases in infiltration, large decreases in seepage, and a dominantly vertical profile for floodwater were observed. This implies that a stream that supports a wide riparian corridor may be in danger of vegetation die-offs with even shallow depletions of the groundwater table.
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Investigation of the national weather service soil moisture accounting models for flood prediction in the northeast floods of january 1996(Department of Hydrology and Water Resources, University of Arizona (Tucson, AZ), 1999-10)Extensive flooding occurred throughout the northeastern United States during January of 1996. The flood event cost the lives of 33 people and over a billion dollars in flood damage. Following the `Blizzard of `96 ", a warm front moved into the Mid-Atlantic region bringing extensive rainfall and causing significant melting and flooding to occur. Flood forecasting is a vital part of the National Weather Service (NWS) hydrologic responsibilities. Currently, the NWS River Forecast Centers use either the Antecedent Precipitation Index (API) or the Sacramento Soil -Moisture Accounting Model (SAC-SMA). This study evaluates the API and SAC -SMA models for their effectiveness in flood forecasting during this rain -on -snow event. The SAC -SMA, in conjunction with the SNOW-17 model, is calibrated for five basins in the Mid -Atlantic region using the Shuffled Complex Evolution (SCE-UA) automatic algorithm developed at the University of Arizona. Nash-Sutcliffe forecasting efficiencies (Ef) for the calibration period range from 0.79 to 0.87, with verification values from 0.42 to 0.95. Flood simulations were performed on the five basins using the API and calibrated SAC-SMA model. The SAC-SMA model does a better job of estimating observed flood discharge on three of the five study basins, while two of the basins experience flood simulation problems with both models. Study results indicate the SAC-SMA has the potential for better flood forecasting during complex rain-on-snow events such as during the January 1996 floods in the Northeast.
