Investigating coastal backwater effects and flooding in the coastal zone using a global river transport model on an unstructured mesh

Feng, Dongyu; Tan, Zeli; Engwirda, Darren; Liao, Chang; Xu, Donghui; Bisht, Gautam; Zhou, Tian; Li, Hong-Yi; Leung, L. Ruby

doi:10.5194/hess-26-5473-2022

Articles | Volume 26, issue 21

https://doi.org/10.5194/hess-26-5473-2022

© Author(s) 2022. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.

https://doi.org/10.5194/hess-26-5473-2022

© Author(s) 2022. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.

Articles | Volume 26, issue 21

Research article

|

03 Nov 2022

Research article |

| 03 Nov 2022

Investigating coastal backwater effects and flooding in the coastal zone using a global river transport model on an unstructured mesh

Dongyu Feng, Zeli Tan, Darren Engwirda, Chang Liao, Donghui Xu, Gautam Bisht, Tian Zhou, Hong-Yi Li, and L. Ruby Leung

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Final revised paper (published on 03 Nov 2022)
Preprint (discussion started on 25 Jul 2022)

Interactive discussion

Status: closed

RC1:
'Comment on hess-2022-251', Anonymous Referee #1, 08 Aug 2022

Please find my detailed comments in the attached file.

Citation: https://doi.org/10.5194/hess-2022-251-RC1
- AC1: 'Reply on RC1', Dongyu Feng, 28 Sep 2022
  
  We appreciate the reviewer for the critical and insightful comments and suggestions. Please find our detailed response in the attached file.
  
  Citation: https://doi.org/10.5194/hess-2022-251-AC1
RC2:
'Comment on hess-2022-251', Anonymous Referee #2, 25 Aug 2022

This paper presents a method to address the interactive phenomenon of river flooding and storm surge, using an unstructured mesh and focusing on two US coasts with different characteristics. The study underscores the role of backwater effects in representing the impact. Overall the study is well written and the results are clearly demonstrated. I have one minor comment.

P 5 L 135 Here the river widths are estimated using an empirical equation. This can be the source of uncertainty in simulations, so it should be relied only when other available and reliable data cannot be obtained. The target area is US, so there should be more reliable data. At least, global river width dataset has also been developed such as GWD-LR (Yamazaki et al. 2014). I would not ask the authors to re-calculate all the results, but just add some discussion on this point and consider using other data in future work.

Citation: https://doi.org/10.5194/hess-2022-251-RC2
- AC2: 'Reply on RC2', Dongyu Feng, 28 Sep 2022
  
  We would like to sincerely thank the reviewer for the valuable comments and recommendations. Please find the detailed response in the attached file.
  
  Citation: https://doi.org/10.5194/hess-2022-251-AC2

Peer review completion

AR – Author's response | RR – Referee report | ED – Editor decision | EF – Editorial file upload

ED: Publish subject to technical corrections (11 Oct 2022) by Hubert H.G. Savenije

AR by Dongyu Feng on behalf of the Authors (11 Oct 2022) Author's response Manuscript

Short summary

Sea level rise, storm surge and river discharge can cause coastal backwater effects in downstream sections of rivers, creating critical flood risks. This study simulates the backwater effects using a large-scale river model on a coastal-refined computational mesh. By decomposing the backwater drivers, we revealed their relative importance and long-term variations. Our analysis highlights the increasing strength of backwater effects due to sea level rise and more frequent storm surge.