Influence of a porous urban block on urban flood flow patterns

Urban flood laboratory experiments usually consider that the flow is mostly concentrated in streets and does not enter the building areas. However, urban blocks might modify the flow patterns at local scale due to the inflows or/and outflows through openings such as gates, windows, doors, etc. To investigate the influence of urban block porosity on flow distribution, flow depth and velocity in the surrounding streets, experiments were performed on a physical model. The results show that the urban block porosity does not substantially affect the discharge distribution in the streets located downstream of the urban block. However, flow depth, velocity and flow rate in the surrounding streets are more strongly modified.