NZ Student Engineers Seeking Assistance
2nd January 2023
Our New Zealand colleague Sharyn Westlake has asked us to pass on the following request from student engineers undertaking a holiday project:
We are investigating methods for rapid breach analysis and mapping for the Flood Protection Department at the Greater Wellington Regional Council.
Greater Wellington requires a method of rapidly mapping flooding due to the breaching or overtopping of stopbanks (levees) in the Region to determine which houses require evacuation. To do this, we would like to better understand the methods utilised elsewhere in response to this issue.
An ideal model or tool would be quick and efficient to use in ‘near real-time’ (under 15 minutes) or be ‘pre-calculated’ and require minimal configuration and setup. We are interested in both ‘near real-time’ and simple ‘pre-calculated methods’.
We want to use forecasted river levels to determine which houses to evacuate when information of a stopbank breach is received, such as evidence of erosion leading to the sudden collapse of a stopbank. We are looking to compare methods utilised by others to avoid developing a method from scratch where this has been done before. We would love to utilise any existing ideas, processes, or tools if such an idea exists.
If this project sounds like something you have experience in, we would love to hear from you.
Please contact Sharyn at Greater Wellington Regional Council if you are able to assist: Sharyn.Westlake@gw.govt.nz
