Impact of remote sensed soil moisture and infiltration on flood dynamics under extreme rainfall events

Ariho, Ayebare Raymond, Lam, Man-Yue ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-7259-968X and Ahmadian, Reza ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-2665-4734 2026. Impact of remote sensed soil moisture and infiltration on flood dynamics under extreme rainfall events. Presented at: 4th International Conference on Resilience, Multi-Risk Assessment and Monitoring (ICONREM 2026), Florence, Italy, 16–19 June 2026. Published in: Tanganelli, Marco, Viti, Stefania, Arrighi, Chiara and Intrieri, Emanuele eds. Resilience, Multi-risk Assessment and Monitoring: ICONREM 2026. Lecture Notes in Civil Engineering. Lecture Notes in Civil Engineering , vol.944 Cham, Switzerland: Springer, pp. 512-522. 10.1007/978-3-032-39867-3_49

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Abstract

As climate change leads to heavier and more frequent rainfall, flooding, one of the most destructive natural hazards worldwide, is becoming an increasing concern in the United Kingdom. These changes elevate the risk of both flash floods and river flooding, placing pressure on communities, emergency planning, and infrastructure design. Reliable flood models are therefore essential for early warning and resilience planning. Flood behaviour depends on several interacting factors, including rainfall intensity, river flows, coastal levels, and infiltration, which strongly controls the proportion of rainfall converted into surface runoff. However, many traditional shallow-water-equation-based models neglect infiltration, potentially leading to unrealistic flood responses. This study introduces an improved modelling framework (DIVAST-TVD-GA) that integrates the Green–Ampt infiltration approach into a shallow-water hydrodynamic model and dynamically updates infiltration processes using satellite-derived soil moisture via a Kalman filter. A sensitivity analysis study conducted in York, UK, shows that including infiltration reduces simulated flood depths, volumes, and extent, while soil moisture data assimilation further influences runoff generation under varying antecedent conditions. While the framework was evaluated on a single case study, it is applicable to other catchments when calibration and validation data is available. Overall, the framework provides a basis for improving the representation of hydrological processes in flood modelling.

Item Type:	Conference or Workshop Item - published (Paper)
Date Type:	Published Online
Status:	Published
Schools:	Schools > Engineering
Subjects:	T Technology > TA Engineering (General). Civil engineering (General) T Technology > TC Hydraulic engineering. Ocean engineering
Additional Information:	RRS policy applied
Publisher:	Springer
ISBN:	9783032398666
ISSN:	2366-2557
Date of First Compliant Deposit:	17 October 2026
Date of Acceptance:	5 June 2026
Last Modified:	19 Oct 2026 13:45
URI:	https://orca.cardiff.ac.uk/id/eprint/190271

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