River hydraulics and hydropower

The study of rivers in flood has become more important recently with the advent of climate change and its predicted effects on rainfall and runoff. The River Hydraulics and Hydropower sub-group is engaged in an ongoing programme of research aimed at evolving methodologies for the accurate predication of discharge capacity and flood depths in rivers during overbank flows.

Currently experimental investigations are in progress to model river flood behaviour in urbanised areas to quantify the effects of large urban scale floodplain roughness on the discharge capacity and flow depths of floodplains. The experimental data will be used to predict order of magnitude effects, as well as facilitating the calibration and testing of computation modelling.