The flood of 2001 was the first operational test of the District’s Mississippi River Basin Modeling System (MBMS) during a major flood event. MBMS was first implemented in the Rock Island District in 1997, and was developed in response to the Great Flood of 1993. The MBMS system utilizes the UNET one-dimensional unsteady hydraulic flow model, and has been designed to produce real time forecast stages along the Mississippi River. Included in the model geometry are navigation lock and dams, the many bridges that cross the river, and the federal and non-federal levee systems that border the Mississippi River within the District. MBMS is run daily by the operational river forecaster responsible for the regulation of the navigation dams that fall within the district boundaries. During flood periods, MBMS is run to provide mainstem river forecasts to aid flood-fighting efforts at the dams and along federal levees. The results are shared with the National Weather Service, the agency responsible for producing the final public river forecasts.
During the flood of 2001, the MBMS model performed exceptionally well, providing accurate crest forecasts up to one week in advance with little day-to-day variation. Levee overtopping and breaches were modeled fairly well. In addition, recession forecasts - used heavily by the navigation industry to plan for the restart of barge traffic - proved to be very accurate.
Future developments and modifications to the MBMS system will be targeted at including the model within the new Corps of Engineers Water Management System (CWMS). CWMS is the modernized data acquisition and modeling tool currently being deployed throughout the Corps of Engineers. Developed by the Hydrologic Engineering Center, CWMS combines hydraulic and hydrologic modeling with flood control reservoir simulation and economic analysis in a real time environment.
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