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The impacts of impervious surface expansion and the operation of polders on flooding under rapid urbanization processes

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Abstract 

Impervious surface expansion and the construction of polders are typical human activities that can influence hydrological processes. Understanding the mechanism of the influence can help to establish flood control within a changing environment. In this study, the influence of impervious surface expansion and the operation of polders on flooding have been detected using a semi-distributed hydrological model, i.e., the Hydrological Engineering Center-Hydrological Modeling System (HEC-HMS) model. The results indicate that impervious upstream surface expansion influenced peak discharge more significantly compared with downstream expansion. The peak discharge of the basin with polders decreased 26.38–36.61% compared with that without polders. Impervious surface expansion effected a higher increase in the peak discharge in a basin with than without polders. A decrease in drainage discharge and an increase in the maximum allowable water depth could reduce peak discharge at the basin outlet. On the premise of ensuring safety inside polders, polder operation could help reduce on average 7.94% and 5.90% of small and large floods peak discharge on average.

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Data availability

The datasets supporting the conclusion of this study are available from the corresponding author upon reasonable request.

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Acknowledgements

We greatly appreciate the editor and reviewers for their insightful comments and constructive suggestions that helped us improve the manuscript.

Funding

This work is financially supported by the projects of the National Natural Science Foundation of China (No. U2240203, No. 42101020 and No. 41771032), and the Water Conservancy Science and Technology Foundation of Jiangsu Province (No. 2021010).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. School of Geography and Ocean Science, Nanjing University, Nanjing, 210023, China

    Bin Gao, Youpeng Xu, Yanwei Sun, Qiang Wang & Ziyi Li

  2. School of Geography and Tourism, Chongqing Normal University, Chongqing, 401331, China

    Yuefeng Wang

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  1. Bin Gao
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Contributions

All authors contributed to the study conception and design. Bin Gao: data collection, analyzing the results, and writing the article. Youpeng Xu: supervising the article and improving the expressions. Yanwei Sun: data collection. Qiang Wang: supervising the article. Yuefeng Wang: supervising the article. Ziyi Li: supervising the article.

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Correspondence to Youpeng Xu.

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Gao, B., Xu, Y., Sun, Y. et al. The impacts of impervious surface expansion and the operation of polders on flooding under rapid urbanization processes. Theor Appl Climatol 151, 1215–1225 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00704-022-04318-8

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