Violent storms like Hurricane Helene last fall have made Americans aware of how devastasting flooding on rivers and streams can be and how beneficial accurate predictions of where and when flooding will occur would be.
Oak Ridge National Laboratory researchers are working on improving the accuracy of flood predictions using physics-based computer models of the ever-changing nature of a flood and the factors influencing its progression and effects. The researchers have achieved promising results, thanks to the lab’s powerful high-performance computers, which include Frontier, the world’s second fastest supercomputer.
Large computational requirements can limit the application of physics-based simulation of flood hydrodynamics, particularly for large-scale and long-duration flood events, but ORNL’s computing power has enabled researchers to overcome those limitations.
At its July luncheon lecture, Friends of ORNL will hear from Shih-Chieh Kao, group leader of the Water Resource Science and Engineering Group in the Environmental Sciences Division at ORNL and the program manager of the ORNL Water Power Program, regarding ORNL’s efforts to scale up flood modeling using the lab’s state-of-the art computers.
Kao will speak on “Advancing Capabilities for Hydrodynamic Modeling of Flooding – How Far Can We Go?” at noon Tuesday, July 8, at the UT Resource Center, 1201 Oak Ridge Turn-pike. Before the free presentation starts, sandwiches, chips, cookies and drinks will be available at 11:15 a.m. at the UT Resource Center for a donation of $10 on a first-come, first-served basis. To view the virtual presentation, click on the talk title on the www.fornl.org website homepage and then click on the Zoom link near the top of the page describing the lecture. You can view it the next day by clicking on “Past Talks” on the website’s navigation bar.
Kao will tell how the ORNL team has scaled up and accelerated the processing of TRITON (Two-dimensional Runoff Inundation Toolkit for Operational Needs), an open-source, physics-based hydrodynamic model based on shallow-water equations, by running it on high-performance computers equipped with graphics processing units. GPUs, which were first used for video games, provide the necessary power for complex calculations, and they are used in the Frontier supercomputer, as well as its predecessor, Summit.
TRITON was run on ORNL’s supercomputers to simulate massive widespread flooding in spring 2019 in the Missouri River Basin, the largest river basin in the United States, covering all or portions of 10 states, or a total of 529,000 square miles.
The huge floods caused billions of dollars’ worth of damage to both infrastructure (such as buildings, roads, and bridges) and agriculture (such as damage to food crops and grain that was unshipped because of disruptions in river barge traffic).
“Results demonstrate that, by harnessing GPU-equipped computing systems, large-scale, multi-day flood events can be simulated by hydrodynamic models within a few hours,” Kao said. “This work lays the foundation for future advancements in flood modeling, enabling more effective flood risk management and mitigation strategies.”
Examples of flood risk management and mitigation strategies include restrictions on developments in floodplains, flash flood warnings, dams and levees, flood-proofed buildings, installation of basement sump pumps and the relocation of people living on the floodplain.
A distinguished researcher at ORNL, Kao oversees various research projects supported by the Department of Energy’s Water Power Technologies Office. He holds three degrees in civil engineering – B.S. and M.S. degrees from National Taiwan University and a Ph.D. from Purdue University.
Since 2011, he has led a national assessment on the effects of climate change on the national production of power by hydroelectric dams. He also contributed to a National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine study on modernizing estimates of probable maximum precipitation in a changing climate.
In 2023, he was named a fellow of the Environmental & Water Resources Institute of the American Society of Civil Engineers.
He has served as a frequent reviewer for more than 20 scientific and engineering journals. He has received several distinguished awards, including an outstanding reviewer award, a best dissertation award and two best paper awards.
This article originally appeared on Oakridger: Simulating floods is the topic at Friends of ORNL talk on July 8
