Modeling Inland Flooding Due to Tropical Cyclones

Landfall hurricanes often produce heavy precipitation resulting in river and flash floods. Such floods can not only cause lose of human lives and property, but also lead to ecological disasters in the watershed areas, estuaries and coastal waters. To simulate inland flood risks and assess potential ecological impacts associated with landfall tropical cyclones, the AGricultural Non-Point Source Pollution Model (AGNPS) (Binger et. al, 2001) is employed in the study. The AGNPS model builds upon a GIS interface that is integrated with the hydro-meteorological components of the model, as well as with the watershed database which contains the information for watershed topology, soil and land use. In this study, we investigated the hydrological responses in the Tar Pamlico River basin, NC to historical landfall hurricanes from 1990 – 2007 and analyzed the sensitivity of the watershed responses to storm track, intensity and precipitation distribution.