This paper presents an object-oriented two-dimensional (2-D) overland flow model and its application in simulating flood flows over Ulus basin, located in the north of Turkey adjacent to the Black Sea. A new coding implementation according to the class environment created in object oriented C++ programming language is carried out in structuring and building the solver. The model is based on the Godunov type finite volume scheme on unstructured triangular meshes. A mass balance preserving wet/dry boundary solution algorithm is integrated in the numerical scheme to satisfy the positive-depth condition and minimize the numerical instability when treating the propagation of wave front in regions of dry bed. The balance between bed slope and flux terms is also preserved for still water conditions on irregular topography. The 2-D solver is verified by simulating selected dam break cases, where good agreement with measured data is achieved. For the simulation of flood flows in the Ulus basin, in general, the simulated outflow hydrograph is found to compare well with the recorded data. A selected inundation map that is extracted from the model results is also presented to show the water surface level in the Floodplain.
Dams have an important role in the industrial development of countries. Irrespective of the reason for dam break, the flood can cause devastating disasters with loss of life and property especially in densely populated areas. In this study, the effects of the vegetation on the flood wave propagation in case of dam break were investigated experimentally by using the distorted physical model of Ürkmez Dam. The horizontal and vertical scales of the distorted physical model are 1/150 and 1/30, respectively. The dam break scenarios were achieved by means of a gate of rectangular and triangular shape. The results obtained from experiments performed with vegetation were compared and interpreted with those obtained from experiments at which the vegetation configuration was absent. The analysis of the experimental data showed that the presence of vegetation causes a significant decrease in water depths as the flood wave propagates to the downstream and greatly reduces its impact on the settlements. It is also revealed that dam break shape plays an important role in temporal variation of flood wave.