Implementing drone as flood inundation laboratory measurement tool

Abstract

Interest in flood inundation study keep increasing due to the increment in the flood hazard around the world. Although the main interest is numerical approach, hydraulic model experiment is still needed. This is because the numerical approach has limitation while the hydraulic model has the capability to replicate the actual condition of flood. To increase the accuracy between hydraulic model and actual site, a large-scale hydraulic model is one of the solutions. However, using a large-scale hydraulic model has drawback, where the measurement of the flood inundation processes is more difficult due its size and duration. Therefore, a fast and accurate measurement approach is required to collect the flood inundation data, especially in terms of flood extent. This study proposed a drone image method to measure the flood extent in a large-scale hydraulic model experiment of flood inundation. A total size of 23 m × 11.5 m hydraulic model were built in a laboratory to replicate the Sungai Bertam with scale 1/25. The ground measurement and drone image were used to measure the flood inundation to determine the capabilities of the drone image. The results demonstrate the efficacy of the proposed approach.