Technical Seminar on Modeling Coastal Flooding due to Compound Ocean Disasters

Date, time & venue

26 July 2023 (Wednesday), 17:00-18:00, Seminar via Zoom Meeting

Organized by

HKIE Civil Division and The Hong Kong Polytechnic University

Programme Highlight

Intensified activities of tropical cyclones in the Western North Pacific have imposed increasing threats to coastal cities in the context of global climate change. A storm surge superimposed with astronomical high tide, i.e., a storm-tide event, often causes severe flooding in many coastal cities in South China Sea (SCS) region. Meanwhile, the potential tsunami hazard associated with the megathrust in Manila subduction zone has become a serious concern in this region. These two kinds of coastal hazard have been studied independently in the past since they are caused by different physical mechanisms in nature. However, there is no scientific reason to rule out the possibility of concurrence of a storm-tide-tsunami event, which is admittedly rare. This study simulates a group of synthetic events assuming that tsunami waves are generated by a Mw 9 earthquake in the Manila subduction zone during a typhoon, which has the same characteristics as the 2017 Typhoon Hato. A numerical model package originally developed for storm-tide calculation has been modified to simulate a concurrent storm-tide-tsunami event. A variety of scenarios are considered as the tsunamis are superimposed at different phases of the storm-tide event. Their compound impacts on Macau and Hong Kong in Pearl River Delta, China, are investigated. The worst-case scenarios have been identified at Macau and Hong Kong, respectively. In addition, the efficacy of the linear superposition of results obtained separately for each hazard (i.e., typhoon and tsunamis) is also discussed. In general, the linearly superimposed solutions consistently underestimate the maximum water levels and yield delays on the arrival times of peak flooding stage in the Pearl River estuary. It is concluded that for coastal protection and hazard mitigation planning in this region, these extreme situations need to be considered. A fully coupled numerical model package is now available for conducting such studies.

Language

English

Fee

Free of Charge.

Speakers

Dr. Jinghua Wang is currently an Assistant Professor at the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering at The Hong Kong Polytechnic University. Dr. Wang received his PhD in Hydraulic Engineering at City, University of London in 2015. Prior to joining PolyU, he has worked as a research fellow in the Coastal Group lead by Prof. Philip L.-F. Liu in Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, National University of Singapore. His research interests focus on coastal and offshore disasters such as storm surge, tsunamis, and rogue/freak waves. He has been involved in many research projects on developing numerical models for simulating oceanic disasters with emphasis on gaining insights of the mechanisms and evaluating their impacts on offshore engineering applications. Recently, he was also involved in the Singapore government funded project on mitigation of coastal and inland flooding due to future weather extremes and sea level rise. Dr. Wang also serves as the Associate Editor for journal Engineering Applications of Computational Fluid Mechanics. He is also a member of the ISOPE (International Society of Offshore and Polar Engineers) International Hydrodynamics Committee and Technical Program Committee.

Registration & Enquiries

Please complete the on-line registration at https://us02web.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_07oR34i8QhyovS7ibLaHIA. The number of participants is limited to 500 on a first-come-first served basis. Priority will be given to members of the Civil Division.

Email registration will not be accepted. Successful applicants will be informed by email and provided a link to the Zoom Meeting at the designated time slot. Participants need to sign in using the membership no. and name entered at the time of registration. A CPD certificate will be issued 3 weeks after the seminar based on this membership no. and name.

For enquiries, please contact Mr. Alan Yan via email: alanyan@pyengineering.com.