A Modified Digital Elevation Modeling for Stormwater Management Planning in Segmentalized Micro-catchment Areas

Background and objective: Urban topology can be characterized as impervious, which changes the hydrologic features of an area, increasing surface water flow during local heavy rain events. The pluvial flooding is also influenced by the vertical structures of the urban area. This study suggested a modified digital elevation model (DEM) to identify changes in urban hydrological conditions and segmentalized urban micro catchment areas using a geographical information system (GIS). Methods: This study suggests using a modified DEM creation process based on Rolling Ball Method concepts along with a GIS program. This method proposes adding realized urban vertical data to normal DEM data and simulating hydrological analyses based on RBM concepts. The most important aspect is the combination of the DEM with polygon data, which includes urban vertical data in three datasets: the contour polyline, the locations of buildings and roads, and the elevation point data from the DEM. DEM without vertical data (DCA) were compared with the DEM including vertical data (VCA) to analyze catchment areas in Shin-wol district, Seoul, Korea. Results: The DCA had 136 catchments, and the area of each catchment ranged from 3,406 m2 to 423,449 m2. The VCA had 2,963 catchments, with the area of each ranging from 50 m2 to 16,209 m2. The most important finding is that in the overlapped VCA; the boundary of areas directly affected by flooding and the direction of surface water flow could be identified. Flooding data from September 21, 2010 and July 27, 2011 in the Shin-wol district were applied as ground reference data. The finding is that in the overlapped VCA; the boundary of areas directly affected by flooding and the direction of surface water flow could be identified. Conclusion: The analysis of the area vulnerable to surface water flooding (SWF) was more accurately determined using the VCA than using the DCA.