wetropolis

Wetropolis

A project together with Onno Bokhove, university of Leeds UK

Here is the background of the project: flood demonstrator Wetropolis, by Onno Bokhove, Edinburgh, 2016.

The leading questions:

Is it going to rain more in the future ?
Can we define extreme precipitation & flooding events ?
How (well) can we predict heavy precipitation & floods ?
How (well) can we mitigate and control flooding ?
How can we elucidate the above in an interactive, conceptual table-top
demonstration “Wetropolis”?

Here are some pictures of the building of Wetropolis:

The model is an abstracted, meandering river with levees. A reservoirs (lake) and a moor with retention capacities and characteristics are included and determine the hydrological response on rain. This makes the model a working physical scalemodel to evaluate various rain situations within a short time and on a small scale. The results give insight in and predict the behaviour of the real river - rain system.

Fysically, the rain is simulated by two pumps triggered by two galton boards. The slots in which the balls drop determines which pumps starts and how long they run (rain location and - intensity). For more information: PDF

When there is a serious wet periode followed by more rain, like boxing day storms 2015 in Leeds, the river will overflow and flood the basin in which Leeds is situated. We could reconstruct this situation in this small scale model

Wetropolis is build out of foam, cut with a CNC router. Construction and design and realisation of the electronics and sensors was done in Wowlab.

The model was presented and demonstrated in 2016 in Edinburg at the Math Forsees conference.