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Urban coastal flood inundation modelling: a case

study of Thane City, India
a a a
R. Chacko , A.T. Kulkarni & T.I. Eldho
a
Indian Institute of Technology Bombay, Mumbai, Maharashtra, India
Published online: 28 Sep 2012.

To cite this article: R. Chacko , A.T. Kulkarni & T.I. Eldho (2012) Urban coastal flood inundation modelling: a case study of
Thane City, India, ISH Journal of Hydraulic Engineering, 18:3, 194-203, DOI: 10.1080/09715010.2012.721187

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 ISH Journal of Hydraulic Engineering
Vol. 18, No. 3, September 2012, 194–203

Urban coastal flood inundation modelling: a case study of Thane City, India
R. Chacko, A.T. Kulkarni and T.I. Eldho*

Indian Institute of Technology Bombay, Mumbai, Maharashtra, India

(Received 11 November 2011; final version received 16 May 2012)

In this paper, the flood simulation of a coastal urban city is presented using the integrated approach of
hydrological model, remote sensing and Geographical Information System (GIS). For hydrological simulation, a
mass balance–based overland flow model and diffusion wave–based model for channel flow is considered. Effect
of tidal variation is considered as the boundary condition. GIS is used for data management whereas remote
sensing is used for land use classification. The model is applied to Thane city catchment, Maharashtra, India to
simulate the channel flooding for two rainfall events. The simulated water levels are compared with some
observed values to serve as validation for the model and are found to be in reasonable agreement. Parameter-
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based sensitivity analysis for the catchment revealed that peak discharge variation is more sensitive to overland
roughness than channel roughness. However, stage (water level) variation is more sensitive to channel roughness.
Time-step sensitivity indicated that model results are stable for a limited range of time step.
Keywords: coastal urban flooding; hydrological model; Geographic Information System; remote sensing

1. Introduction
Increasing trend of flooding in urban areas is a universal phenomenon and poses a challenge to urban planners world
over. Urban coastal areas are especially vulnerable to flooding due to combined effect of heavy rainfall, high tide and
lack of detention storage. Major cities in India have witnessed loss of life and property, disruptions in infrastructure
services due to urban flooding, most recent among them being Hyderabad in 2000, Ahmedabad in 2001, Delhi in 2002
and 2003, Chennai in 2004, Mumbai in 2005, Surat in 2006, Kolkata in 2007, Jamshedpur in 2008, Delhi in 2009 and
Guwahati and Delhi in 2010 (NDMA 2010). It is estimated that more than 600 million people will be living in
metropolitan areas in India by 2021, and finding ways to deal with the flooding problem is crucial. The problems
arising from the urban flooding range from minor ones, such as water entering the basements of a few houses, to major
incidents, where large parts of cities are inundated for several days. This may lead to relocation of population, damage
to infrastructure services and risk of epidemics. Urban areas are hubs for economic activities and such incidents can
have state- and nationwide repercussions. Hence there is a need for re-assessment of drainage capacities of the existing
storm water systems and evaluate possible options using hydraulic models.
The runoff in watershed is traditionally divided into overland flow and channel flow. Many researchers have
developed kinematic and diffusion approximations of St. Venant equations for solving overland flow. Solutions are
developed on numerical methods like the finite difference method (FDM), finite element method (FEM), finite volume
method (FVM) etc. (e.g. Gottardi and Venutelli 1993, 1997, 2008; Kazezy|lmaz-Alhan and Medina 2007; Parlance
et al. 1990; Singh and Aravamuthan 1996; Singh and Woolhiser 2002; Taylor and Huyakorn 1978; Wang et al. 2002).
Channel flow has been simulated using kinematic, diffusion and dynamic wave approximations of the St. Venant
equations. Different solution methods like FDM, FEM, method of characteristics (MoC) etc. have been tried out by
researchers (e.g. Aral et al. 1998; Baltzer et al. 1995; Gonwa and Kavvas 1986; Moramarco and Singh 2000; Odai 1999;
Sivapalan et al. 1997; Szymkiewicz 1991; Wang et al. 2003). Greene and Cruise (1995) applied a GIS-based model for
an urban watershed of Baton Rouge, Louisiana. Mark et al. (2004) simulated the urban flooding for Dhaka city and
demonstrated the integration of one-dimensional (1-D) hydrodynamic modelling with GIS. With advances in GIS and
terrain analysis techniques, dual drainage models are able to realise their full potential (Smith 2006). Researchers
demonstrated the application of integrated model using FEM, GIS and remote sensing–based approach for the event-
based rainfall-runoff simulations (Eldho et al. 2006; Reddy et al. 2007; Shahapure et al. 2010, 2011). Large-scale two-
dimensional inundation models are computationally resource intensive, whereas adaptive quadtree grid–based shallow
water equation solver techniques have been found to be computationally efficient (Liang et al. 2008).
In the present paper, a case study of coastal urban flood simulation is presented using an integrated approach of
hydrological model, GIS and remote sensing. Two small coastal urban catchment of Thane city are considered as the
case study. A hydrological model based on mass balance model for overland flow and diffusion wave equation for
channel flow solved using FEM (Shahapure et al. 2010) is used for the flood simulation. Results for two flood events
are presented and sensitivity analysis of important parameters is discussed.

*Corresponding author. Email: eldho@civil.iitb.ac.in

ISSN 0971–5010 print/ISSN 2164–3040 online

 2012 Indian Society for Hydraulics
http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/09715010.2012.721187
http://www.tandfonline.com
 ISH Journal of Hydraulic Engineering 195

2. Hydrological model
The two important processes considered for urban flood modelling are overland flow and channel flow. In urban flood
simulation, the effect of infiltration and interception losses may be neglected as the objective is simulation of a flood
event after good rainfall conditions. Also, urban areas are predominantly impervious and hence infiltration is
negligible. The details of the hydrological model used in the study are briefly described below (Shahapure et al. 2010).
The overland flow for any sub-region can be evaluated as follows using the continuity equation
@V
IQ¼ , ð1Þ
@t
where I ¼ Inflow; Q ¼ outflow; V ¼ the detention storage over the sub-region. Equation (1) can be written as
re  Ac  q  L ¼ DV=Dt, ð2Þ
where re is the excess rainfall (mm/hr) which is the inflow for the catchment (which is considered same as the total
rainfall for the reasons cited above) and q is the overland flow from the catchment into the stream element. The unit of
q is taken to be flow per unit length of the stream. If Dt is the time step in seconds, L is the length of the stream element
in meters and A is the area of sub-region in square metres; then a non-linear equation is obtained by using Manning’s
equation (Shahapure et al. 2010). Thus, the obtained non-linear equation is solved for the flow depth by an iterative
procedure.
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The channel flow can be represented by the following one-dimensional gradually varied unsteady-flow equations
based on Saint Venant’s equations (Ross et al. 1979).
@Ac @Q
þ  q ¼ 0, ð3Þ
@t @x
 2
Q
@  
@Q Ac @H
þ þ gAc þ Sf ¼ 0, ð4Þ
@t @x @x
where Ac is the cross-sectional area of the channel and Q is the discharge in the channel, q could be flow into the
channel due to overland flow or input/output of the channel due to floodplain flow; Sf is the friction slope and g is the
acceleration due to gravity. In diffusion wave model, the local and convective acceleration terms in the momentum
equation are neglected. Finally, the diffusion wave form (Hromadka et al. 1986) can be expressed as
  
@H @ @H
W  K  q ¼ 0, ð5Þ
@t @x @x
where W is the width of the channel and
Ac  R2=3
K¼  1=2 ,
nc @H
@x

where R is hydraulic radius of the channel; nc is Manning’s roughness coefficient for the channel.
The FEM formulation of equation
P (5) is carried out using Galerkin’s approach (Shahapure et al. 2010). The stage
H can be approximated as, H ¼ ni¼1 Hi Ni , where N1 ¼ 1  x/L, N2 ¼ x/L for a line element with linear interpolation,
L is the length of the element and n is the number of nodes in the element. An element matrix for equation (5) is
approximated as
2 LW K 8 9
K 3
 > qL LW t K t t >
þ  < þ H  H  H 2 =
6 2Dt 2L 2L 7 H1 2 2Dt 1 2L 1 :
4 5 ¼ ð6Þ

K LW K
þ
H2 tþDt > : qL þ LW Ht  K Ht  Ht > ;
2L 2Dt 2L 2 2Dt 2 2L 2 1

Element matrices are assembled and solved after applying the initial and the boundary conditions to find the
unknown head. The initial condition used here are at t ¼ 0; Q(x, 0) ¼ Q0; H(x, 0) ¼ H0. The boundary conditions used are:
upstream boundary Q ¼ Q(0, t) and downstream boundary H ¼ H(Lc, t); where H is stage, Q is the discharge through
the channel and Lc is the total length of the channel.

3. Study area
The city of Thane is located on the North-East of Salsette Island and shares a contiguous boundary with Greater
Mumbai city (Figure 1). Thane city is located between 19 100 1900 and 19 140 5600 N latitudes and 72 550 5000 and
73 000 3200 E longitudes, covering an area of about 128 km2 (CDP 2005). The storm water drainage system in Thane city
comprises of roadside drains emptying into natural watercourses which flow from a hilly region towards creek. In the
 196 R. Chacko et al.
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Figure 1. Location map of C5 and C6 catchments of Thane. [To view a colour version of this figure, see the online version of this
Journal.]

present study, two sub-catchments of Thane city consisting of catchments 5 and 6 (C5 and C6) with a combined area of
9.92 km2 is considered for flood simulation. The two catchments, C5 and C6, have a drainage area of 5.12 and
4.80 km2, respectively. The study area is surrounded by Parsik hills on the west side and Thane creek on the east and
flanked by other catchments in the north and south directions. The ground level varies from 3.0 to 289.0 m above the
MSL. The dominant flow direction is towards east. Flooding during one of the extreme rainfall events of 26 July 2005
caused extensive damage to Thane city. The worst affected area for C5 was Rabodi (chainage 0–500 m) and for C6 it
was the Brindavan Complex (chainage 300–1500 m) as indicated in Figure 1 (Hariyali Team 2006).
In the present study, two rainfall events were considered, one of them an extreme rainfall event of 26 July 2005 for
flood simulation. The model inputs are rainfall intensity and duration, overland flow element slopes and channel
properties. The model parameters include Manning’s roughness coefficient for overland flow and channel elements.
The overland flow is simulated by discretising the area into sub-catchments and the channel flow is simulated by
discretising the channel into line elements with a channel length of 30 m and a time step of 5 sec.
Tides around the catchment are semi-diurnal (two high waters and two low waters each day). The tidal boundary
condition is considered based on a semidiurnal sinusoidal equation in time t (City Industrial Development Corporation
[CIDCO], unpublished technical report, 2003) and is given as d ¼ dm þ h  sinð2t=tp Þ; here d is the tidal stage, dm is
the mean tidal stage, h is half the tidal oscillation range and tp is the period for one complete tidal cycle. The values at
the boundary condition are based on the above-mentioned equation and the daily tidal charts available near the
study area.
Mass balance equation is used for the overland flow simulation and the diffusion wave–based FEM for channel
flow. GIS software ArcGIS 9.3 has been used for pre-processing of input data. Image classification software ERDAS
 ISH Journal of Hydraulic Engineering 197
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Figure 2. (a) Overland flow grid map. (b) Digital elevation model of study area. [To view a colour version of this figure, see the
online version of this Journal.]

Imagine 9.0 is used for classification of land use of the catchment from multispectral images from the Indian Remote
Sensing Satellite (IRS) for 2005 of the study area. Manning’s roughness values are assigned based on the land use
pattern in the ArcGIS environment.

4. GIS and remote sensing for data processing

GIS software ArcGIS 9.3 has been used for the pre-processing of input data. Manning’s roughness coefficients are
assigned based on land use pattern in the ArcGIS environment. The digital elevation model (DEM) for the study area
was obtained from the Advanced Space-borne Thermal Emission and Reflection radiometer (ASTER) imaging
instrument located on the Terra satellite (http://asterweb.jpl.nasa.gov/) and is shown in Figure 2(b). The ASTER
Global Digital Elevation Model (GDEM) is available at 30 -m resolution with estimated vertical accuracies of 20 m.
The DEM and slope maps for the study area are shown in Figures 2(b) and 3(a), respectively. For the purpose of
modelling, catchments C5 and C6 are divided into 31 and 23 overland flow elements, respectively (Figure 2a). The
slope values for the grid are obtained from the slope map and grid coverage map using the zonal statistics option of
ArcMap. The main channel of the catchments C5 (of length 5580 m) and C6 (of length 5490 m) has been divided into
 198 R. Chacko et al.
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Figure 3. (a) Slope map of study area. (b) Land use/land cover map of catchments C5 and C6 (May 2005). [To view a colour version
of this figure, see the online version of this Journal.]

186 and 183 elements respectively. The average longitudinal slopes of the channels of C5 and C6 are relatively high, at
1 in 77 and 1 in 113, respectively.
The major portion of the channel has concrete surfaces on the sides and a rocky surface on the bed. These channels
were originally a natural river, the sides of which have been concretised as urbanisation progressed. For such channels
with different surfaces, different formulae are available in Chaudhary (2008) for deriving equivalent channel
roughness, which essentially is a function of the wetted perimeter. However, to make computations simpler, authors
have adopted the norms used by the CIDCO for planning the Navi Mumbai storm water drainage system (Natu et al.
1991), wherein the roughness values for natural rivers, nallas and fully lined channels is 0.04, 0.035 and 0.02,
respectively. Hence, a roughness value of 0.035 has been considered for simulation. Land use/Land Cover (LULC) has
been derived from remotely sensed image obtained from Indian Remote Sensing Satellite (IRS) of May 2005 with a
spatial resolution of 23.5 m. Supervised classification based on a Gaussian maximum likelihood classification
technique (Lillesand et al. 2008) has been carried out using ERDAS Imagine software. Four land use classes are
considered: built-up (includes residential, industrial, slums, roads etc.), forest (includes green mountainous region),
water (includes water bodies such as lakes and creeks) and open area (includes barren land). The land use maps for
catchments C5 and C6 are shown in Figure 3(b). Manning’s roughness coefficients for the forest land, built-up area,
open land and water body considered are 0.1, 0.015, 0.01 and 0.03, respectively (Vieux 2001).
 ISH Journal of Hydraulic Engineering 199

5. Results and discussion

The rainfall event of 31 July 2010 has been simulated for both catchments. The simulated water levels were compared
with the observed, as the measured data is available for this day. Further, flooding event of 26 July 2005 is also
simulated to investigate flooding in the channel nodes. The tidal level at the start of the rainfall is considered as the
initial condition of the channel. The infiltration loss is neglected as it is assumed that the soil surface has been
sufficiently saturated before the occurrence of these events. The rainfall and runoff for the simulated events are
summarised in Table 1. Simulated maximum peak at end node and maximum stage at the start node are shown in the
same table.
The rainfall event of 31 July 2010 starts at 00:00 hrs. The semi-diurnal tide starts from its high water level of 0.26 m
above the MSL at the rainfall start. The rainfall duration is 24 hrs, with a total rainfall of 136.00 mm. The simulated
peak discharge and time to peak discharge for C5 is 20.93 m3/sec and 17.97 hrs whereas that for C6 is 18.47 m3/sec and
18.73 hrs respectively. The discharge and stage hydrographs (at certain chainages) along with the tidal level at creek
boundary, for C5 and C6 are shown in Figure 4(a) and (b), respectively. The lag time (defined as the time difference
between the time to peak discharge and centroid of rainfall) is 1.96 hrs (i.e., 17.97–16.01 hrs) for C5 and 2.72 hrs
(i.e., 18.73–16.01 hrs) for C6, indicating faster response times for C5.
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Table 1. Summary Of Rainfall And Runoff For Simulated Events.

Event No. 1 2

Event Date 31 July 2010 26 July 2005

Catchment C5 and C6 C5 and C6

Rainfall start time 00:00 hrs 00:00 hrs
Total Rainfall Volume (mm) 136 745
Total Rainfall Duration (mins.) 1560 1275
Average Intensity (mm/hr) 5 35
Max Rainfall Intensity (RI) (mm/hr) 13.7 76
Duration of Max. RI (mins.) 60 60
Results
Catchment C5 C6 C5 C6

Total Simulation Period from start of rainfall (mins.) 1440 1440 1440 1440
Total Runoff Volume (mm) 133.32 127.91 749.92 747.90
Max. Stage# (m) 71.19 45.63 71.38 45.98
Time of max. stage w.r.t to rainfall start time (mins.) 1198.42 1189.67 545.33 600
Peak Discharge (at Ch 0.00 m) (m3/sec) 20.93 18.47 108.60 95.75
Time of peak w.r.t to rainfall start time (mins) 1078.42 1124.25 600 609.5
Channel Flooding NIL NIL 0 to 500 m 500 to 2000 m

Note: # at Ch. 5550 m for C5 and Ch. 5460 m for C6

Figure 4. (a) Simulated discharge and stage hydrographs for catchment C5 (31 July 2010). (b) Simulated discharge and stage
hydrographs for catchment C6 (31 July 2010).
 200 R. Chacko et al.

The comparison of observed and simulated stage levels shown in Figure 5 at chainage 30.00 for catchments C5 and
C6 indicated that the simulated results are comparable to observed values. Coefficient of determination R2 is a
meaningful indicator of accuracy of predictions (McCuen 1989). R2 values close to 1.0 indicate better agreement
between observed and simulated values. The R2 values for C5 and C6 is 0.746 and 0.477, respectively. It is also
observed that the simulated stages (i.e. water levels) are consistently lower than that observed for both the catchments.
The possible reasons attributed are (1) non-consideration of additional flows like sewage flows and other industrial
effluents that are discharged into the storm water; (2) consideration of uniform rainfall over the catchment with hourly
averaged rainfall values, which may not be the real case due to spatial and temporal variation of the rainfall; and (3)
the tidal end boundary conditions applied for the channel model are based on tide table values and are not observed
tide data. The longitudinal profile of the channel with the water-level profiles is shown in Figure 6(a) and (b). The
longitudinal profile indicated that none of the channel nodes have been overtopped for C5 and C6, indicating absence
of flooding for the event.
The flooding event of 26 July 2005 has been extraordinary with the total rainfall of 745 mm occurring over 21 hrs’
duration with a maximum rainfall intensity of 76 mm/hr occurring over a 1-hr period. The tidal level at the start of the
rainfall is 0.85 m below the MSL and is in the falling phase. The simulated discharge and stage hydrographs (at certain
chainages) along with tidal level at creek boundary, for the catchments C5 and C6 are shown in Figure 7(a) and (b)
respectively. The peak discharge of 108.50 m3/sec for C5 occurs at 10.00 hrs while the maximum rainfall intensity
occurs at around 9.67 hrs. The peak discharge of 95.75 m3/sec for C6 occurs at 10.16 hrs whereas the maximum rainfall
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intensity occurs at around 9.67 hrs. The longitudinal channel profile (Figure 8a and b) showed that flooding has taken
place after 3 hrs and 10 hrs from the start of rainfall in the channel of C5 for reach 0–500 m and in the channel of C6 for
reach 250–1500 m, respectively, which are exactly along the Rabodi area (for C5) and Brindavan Complex (for C6)
where extensive flooding was reported.

Figure 5. Comparison of observed and simulated stages at chainage 30.00 m for catchment C5 and C6 (31 July 2010). [To view a
colour version of this figure, see the online version of this Journal.]

Figure 6. (a) Simulated water surface profile along the length of the channel for C5 (31 July 2010). (b) Simulated water surface
profile along the length of the channel for C6 (31 July 2010).
 ISH Journal of Hydraulic Engineering 201

Figure 7. (a) Simulated discharge and stage hydrographs for catchment C5 (26 July 2005). (b) Simulated discharge and stage
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hydrographs for catchment C6 (26 July 2005).

Figure 8. (a) Simulated water surface profile along the length of the channel for 26 July 2005 for C5. (b) Simulated water surface
profile along the length of the channel for 26 July 2005 for C6.

6. Sensitivity of parameters
In the present model, simulation is carried out by varying the Manning’s roughness for overland flow, channel flow
and time step for the rainfall event of 31 July 2010 for C6 to see its sensitivity on the flow parameters, that is, peak
runoff, time to peak and maximum stage. The percentage variation is calculated based on the values estimated with a
time step of 10 sec. Overland flow Manning’s roughness and channel Manning’s roughness are varied from 10% to
þ10% and time step is varied from 2 sec to 120 sec. The results in Tables 2 and 3 show that, in general, the decrease in
the roughness value increases the peak discharge, corroborating the fact that velocity (and thereby discharge) is
inversely proportional to surface roughness. The same thing holds true for time to peak, since lower the surface
roughness, lesser is the impedance for flow, thus achieving a faster time to peak. It is also observed from Tables 2 and 3
that, in general, flow parameters are more sensitive to the overland flow roughness value than to the channel flow.
Table 3 also indicates that decrease in channel roughness is followed by a decrease in maximum stage. This agrees with
the fact that, a decrease in roughness value leads to increase in the flow velocity and thereby reduces the flow depth.
Table 4 shows that with a higher time step, the accuracy of the results deteriorate and a high instability is observed
in the results. A much smaller time step is computationally expensive and without any significant improvement in
the results.
 202 R. Chacko et al.

Table 2. Sensitivity analysis of overland flow Manning’s roughness value (no) for C6.

Peak discharge Time to Max. Stage

n (m1/3 sec) (m3/sec) % Variation peak (minutes) % Variation (meters) % Variation

n  10% 18.50 0.05 1123.67 0.12 45.79 0.00

n  5% 18.50 0.05 1124.50 0.04 45.79 0.00
n 18.49 — 1125.00 — 45.79 —
n þ 5% 18.49 0.00 1126.17 0.10 45.79 0.00
n þ 10% 18.48 0.05 1127 0.18 45.79 0.00

Note: The percentage variation in flow parameters is computed with respect to the values in bold.

Table 3. Sensitivity analysis of channel Manning’s roughness value (nc) for C6.

Peak discharge Time to peak Max. Stage

nc (m1/3 sec) (m3/sec) % Variation (minutes) % Variation (meters) % Variation

nc  10% 18.54 0.29 1117.67 0.65 45.76 0.06

nc  5% 18.52 0.14 1121.83 0.28 45.77 0.04
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nc 18.49 – 1125.00 – 45.79 –

nc þ 5% 18.46 0.14 1129.00 0.36 45.80 0.02
nc þ 10% 18.44 0.28 1133 0.71 45.81 0.04

Note: The percentage variation in flow parameters is computed with respect to the values in bold.

Table 4. Sensitivity analysis on time step variation for C6.

Time step Peak discharge Time to peak

(sec) (m3/sec) % Variation (minutes) % Variation

2 18.46 0.17 1123.63 0.12

5 18.47 0.11 1124.25 0.07
10 18.49 1125.00 0.00
15 18.51 0.10 1127.50 —
20 18.52 0.17 1129.00 0.36
60 22.33 20.74 1184.00 5.24
120 26.40 42.77 1220.00 8.44

7. Concluding remarks
Coastal urban cities are highly vulnerable to flooding under the combined influence of heavy rainfall and high tide.
This study presents flood inundation models of urbanised coastal catchments of Thane, Maharashtra, India. Two
rainfall events were simulated. Different tidal boundary conditions were developed for each event based on the tide
table and local tidal equation. The study demonstrated the utility of GIS and remote sensing tools for application of
the hydrological model. The simulated water levels are in good agreement with those observed for one rainfall event for
which measured data are available. Parameter-based sensitivity analysis for the catchment revealed that peak discharge
is more sensitive to overland roughness than channel roughness. However, water stage is more sensitive to channel
roughness. Time-step sensitivity indicated that model results are stable for a limited range of time steps. The Thane
catchments C5 and C6 are prone to flooding, and the possibility of developing a detention pond with tidal gates could
be one of the options for flood management. The integrated model can be further coupled with detention pond model
to study the impact of flooding in presence of detention ponds.

Acknowledgements
The authors acknowledge the Department of Science and Technology, Government of India, New Delhi, for sponsoring
the 09DST033 project. The authors also thank the staff of Thane Municipal Corporation, Maharashtra—K. Lalla,
M. Hirlekar, D. Shinde and M. Pradhan—for providing data related to the drainage and rainfall for the study.

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