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Wetropolis flood investigator​

Academic lead
Onno Bokhove, Maths
Industrial lead
Sean MacCarthy, Hydrotec Ltd and Alexandra Scott, JBA Trust
Co-supervisor(s)
Mark Trigg, Civil Eng, Greg de Boer, Mech Eng
Project themes
Environmental Flows, Geophysical and Astrophysical Flows, Underpinning Methods for Fluid Dynamics

Fig. 1. Showcasing Wetropolis at the Global Flood Partnership meeting, Sept. 2022, Leeds. Organised by Mark Trigg et al. See also Youtube video exploring wetropolis, an extreme flood and rainfall generator.

The Wetropolis flood demonstrator visualises extreme flooding events and inspired a flood-mitigation cost-effectiveness tool. While Wetropolis’ weather is straightforward, the resultant probability distribution of flooding events in the city is a complex spatial-temporal modification thereof. The project aims to use Wetropolis scientifically, as a flood investigator. A combined Wetropolis laboratory set-up and a Numerical Wetropolis Prediction (NWP) model will be developed to further our understanding of extreme flooding, climate and drought statistics, rare-event simulations (for events of “intermediate rarity”), flood control using reservoirs as buffers, data assimilation with Wetropolis as “truth run”, and the efficacy of flood-mitigation measures.
See also Youtube video exploring wetropolis, an extreme flood and rainfall generator.