Methodology for Assessment of Climate Change Impacts on Large-Scale Flood Protection System

An original modeling framework for the assessment of climate variation and change impacts on the performance of a complex flood protection system has been developed for the city of Winnipeg in the Red River basin, Manitoba, Canada. The modeling framework allows for the evaluation of different climate change scenarios generated by the global climate models. Temperature and precipitation are used as the main factors affecting flood flow generation. The main contribution of the reported work is the use of a system dynamics modeling and simulation approach in the development of a system performance assessment model. The assessment-modeling framework is based on flood flows, capacity of flood control structures, and failure flow levels at different locations in the basin. The results of this study (shown only to illustrate the methodology) indicate that the capacity of the existing Red River flood protection system is sufficient to accommodate future climate variability and change.