ABSTRACT
In the framework of porosity models for urban floods, this work presents a method to compute the spatial distribution of the porosity parameters for a real urban district. Specifically, the method estimates the four parameters required by the differential, dual-porosity formulation, in which an isotropic porosity accounts for the reduced storage volume due to buildings, and cell-based conveyance porosities are introduced in the momentum equations in tensor form to model anisotropic resistances and alterations in the flow direction. The algorithm evaluates the porosity parameters on a cell-by-cell basis and only resorting to geometrical information. The proposed method is tested by simulating the flooding of a real, complex urban district in Italy.
