Discipline: Technology and Engineering
Subcategory: Environmental Engineering
Session: 3
Room: Senate
Danielle Maynard - Texas A&M University - Kingsville
Co-Author(s): Tushar Sinha, Texas A&M University - Kingsville, Kingsville, Texas
Increases in rainfall frequency and intensity, urbanization, as well as rising sea levels along America’s coastal communities have led to an increase in severe urban flooding. Communities with outdated stormwater plans and infrastructure can no longer mitigate effects of high-intensity floods. Such impacts could be overwhelmingly devastating, resulting in loss of life, extensive property and crop damages, and more. Kingsville, Texas is at high flood risk given that it experienced three 100-year flood events in the last five years. To address flooding issues, a hydrologic model for the Tranquitas Creek Watershed, a semi-arid basin encompassing the city of Kingsville, will be used to analyze the effects of low impact development (LID) strategies on flood mitigation. Thus, the objectives of this study are: 1) To estimate the impacts of land use and historical climatic events on peak runoff in the Tranquitas Creek Watershed and 2) To develop LID strategies to mitigate effects of flooding in the Tranquitas Creek Watershed utilizing EPA’s Storm Water Management Model (SWMM).The SWMM model is currently being calibrated to capture impacts of extreme events in the watershed using observed USGS daily observations. The calibrated SWMM model will be used to estimate the effects of historical flood events within the selected watershed. Subsequently, effects of multiple land management practices will be estimated to mitigate flood events. The study’s findings could provide useful insights and information to water managers, practicing engineers, and policy makers due to its relevance to the ongoing tri-county regional drainage master plan study.
Funder Acknowledgement(s): CREST Center for Sustainable Water Use (SWU)
Faculty Advisor: Tushar Sinha, tushar.sinha@tamuk.edu
Role: I conducted the entirety of this research under the guidance of Dr. Sinha. I performed an intensive literature review followed by collecting the required data inputs for the building and validation of the SWMM model. The data obtained includes daily precipitation and temperature summaries, land cover, soil, digital elevation models, and streamflow data. I built the SWMM model by integrating and implementing the data into SWMM, then analyzed the output data. The calibration and validation of the model is currently in progress. In the future, I will implement low impact development strategies within the model to determine the best management practices for flood mitigation in the Tranquitas Creek Watershed.