Comparison of hydrodynamic and low-complexity flood modeling tools

This is a flood modeling project that was conducted during the 2016 NOAA-National Water Center Innovator Program. Various low-complexity flood inundation mapping tools have been developed recently as part of large-scale high resolution hydrologic prediction initiatives. However, there remains a knowledge-gap regarding the ability of these tools to capture inundation extent and depth under different scenarios of floodplain features and flood magnitudes. The objective of this study is to fill the gap by comparing two of such new generation low-complexity tools, AutoRoute and Height Above the Nearest Drainage (HAND), with a two-dimensional hydrodynamic model (Hydrologic Engineering Center-River Analysis System, HEC-RAS 2D). This collection has a graphical abstract, all the required input data, brief outline of methodology featuring necessary pre-processing steps, sample outputs, and an instructional video tutorial.