The Effects of Tree Belt Along Levee on Levee-Break Flows

Susumu Yoshida, Yoshihisa Kawahara, Ryota Tsubaki and Yuya Yamada

Hiroshima University, 1-4-1 Kagamiyama, Higashi-Hiroshima,

Hiroshima, 739-8527, Japan.

33rd IAHR COngress, Vancouver, CANADA

Abstract:

Tree belt along levee is one of the traditional measures to mitigate the damage induced by levee-break inundation. The present study is to investigate the characteristic of the rapid inundation in urban area with the tree belt along levee. A series of experiments are carried out using a large-scale channel with different arrangement of tree belts to measure flow characteristic of the inundation flow. Detailed measurement of water level distribution is made with water level gauges and hydrodynamic force acting on a building with a three-component force transducer. The unsteady nature of rapid inundation flow on urban area and the effect of tree belts on the reduction of the hydrodynamic force acting on a building are quantitatively discussed. An empirical formula is proposed to estimate of the reduction rate of the hydrodynamic force.

Keywords:

Levee breach, urban flooding, tree belt, water level, hydrodynamic force.

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