Towards fast large-scale flood simulations using 2D Shallow water modelling with depth-dependant porosity

In hydrodynamic modelling, the mesh resolution has a strong impact on run time and result accuracy. Coarser meshes allow faster simulations but often at the cost of accuracy. Conversely, finer meshes offer a better description of complex geometries but require much longer computational time, which makes their use at a large scale challenging. In this context, we aim to assess the potential of a two-dimensional shallow water model with depth-dependant porosity (SW2D-DDP) for flood simulations at a large scale. This modelling approach relies on nesting a sub-grid mesh containing high-resolution topographic and bathymetric data within each computational cell via a so-called depth-dependant storage porosity. It enables therefore faster simulations on rather coarse grids while preserving small-scale topography information. The July 2007 flood event in the Severn River basin (UK) is used as a test case, for which hydrometric measurements and spatial data are available for evaluation. A sensitivity analysis is carried out to investigate the porosity influence on the model performance in comparison with other classical parameters such as boundary conditions.