Flood risk assessment in vegetated lower Asahi River of Okayama Prefecture in Japan using airborne topo-bathymetric LiDAR and depth-averaged flow model

Abstract

This paper describes application of airborne LiDAR bathymetry (ALB) with near-infrared and green pulsed lasers for gathering distributed vegetation conditions and topo-bathymetric data for rivers. For the lower Asahi River of Okayama Prefecture in Japan, the ALB data validity was verified using field observation data. This study also examined the applicability of ALB data for numerical simulations of the lower Asahi River flooding in early July 2018 in Japan, comparing simulated and observed data. Results demonstrated that the methodology for this study works well for parameterization of distributed vegetation on a reach scale. This study also applied numerical tests to investigate the effects of vegetation establishment on flood control plans for the lower Asahi River using parameters validated for flood flow simulations. Results demonstrate that the predicted water level markedly exceeds the high water level because of thick vegetation presently established along few-kilometer-long upstream sections of the targeted river reach. Therefore, we conclude that the present findings can support cost-effective management tasks for vegetated rivers.