Toward developing a hydrodynamic flow and inundation model of the lower Pearl River

The lower Pearl River in Mississippi and Louisiana flows through extensive areas of intertidal marshes and flood-plains and is subject to frequent floods due to upstream flows, local runoff and tidal and storm forcing. In order to improve flow and flood prediction capabilities, a hydrodynamic flow and inundation model for the lower Pearl River is being developed using ADCIRC by the river modeling group at the Naval Research Laboratory at Stennis Space Center. Image analysis techniques are applied to high resolution aerial photography of the Pearl River to extract the channel boundaries and a synthetic bathymetry is generated by fitting an idealized cross-section across the channel. A mesh is generated for the entire lower Pearl River from Bogalusa, LA to the coast. A separate mesh is created for a subregion of the East Pearl River and this model is validated against observations.