Integrating technologies for 2D numerical modelling of the Paraná River

TASSI PA; VIONNET CA; RODRÍGUEZ LB

Iowa City and Cedar Rapids, Iowa, 52242-1585 U.S.A.

Conferencia; 4th International Conference on Hydroinformatics (Hydroinformatics 2000); 2000

University of Iowa, AGU, American Meteorological Service (AMS), American Society of Civil Engineers

Nearby the cities of Santa Fe and Paraná, Argentina, the Paraná River runs through a broad, very low-gradient alluvial valley. During the last century, and particularly in the past decades, floods of catastrophic magnitude have severely hit the region causing considerable damages. The main channel is bounded by a steep, stable bank on the Paranᒠside, and by a 10-15 Km wide floodplain on the Santa Fe’ side. To understand how the unrestrained river behaves when is flooded posses an extraordinary challenge given its size. A research project to model the dynamic of floods at the compound floodplain-river channel was initiated recently. This communication describes how conventional technologies available for river studies were put together at the Department of Water Resources, UNL, in the last few years. The first step was to collect bed elevation data with an echo sounder linked to a GPS and to measure the velocity field with an Acoustic Doppler Current Profiler. The ability of the 2D finite element code RMA2 to simulate the hydrodynamics of the Paraná River was assessed on a 10 Km reach through a direct comparison with the field data collected.  Extremely low flows in the past two years, have prevented access to the floodplain, therefore the results presented here are restricted to the main river channel.