1-D Hydraulic Model of Tullahan River for Flood Forecasting

Legarte, M.B.
A
, Macato, B.J.A.
B
, Palparan, J.R.E.
C
, Tabianan,C.N.
D
Civil Engineering Department, College Of Engineering, University of the East- Caloocan Campus


Abstract
Tullahan River, for the previous years, has been recognized as one of the causes of major floods that threatened areas all along
Caloocan, Malabon, Navotas, Valenzuela, Navotas and Quezon City. Rivers have the natural ability to self-heal. But because of continuous
abuse being done by humans, Tullahan River is now considered biologically dead. Protecting it now is relevant due to climate-challenged
weather that we are now experiencing.
In this study, the researchers developed a conceptual framework for alternatives regarding problems about the said river. The
researchers determined the River Basin through plotting the highest elevations with the use of different maps occupied by the Tullahan
River. The River Basin was essential for determining different values needed by the researchers. These values were then applied in the
application used by the researchers. This analytical approach will aid not only in the conservation of the Tullahan River, but as information
to residents living near the river.

Keywords : River Basin

1. Introduction
The Tullahan River is a river in the Philippines. It is
located at the north of Manila and has an approximate length
of 7.6 miles or 15 kilometres. . It runs from La Mesa
Reservoir in Novaliches and snakes through the
municipalities of Malabon, Caloocan, Valenzuela and
Quezon City before emptying westward toward Manila Bay.
The Tullahan River is one of the most polluted rivers in the
world. It is used to be the home to many informal settlers in
Metro Manila.
Tullahan River is one of the major sources of flooding in
the Philippines especially in National Capital Region which
causes an economic and emotional effect on people which
include structural and erosion damage, contamination of
food and water, disruption of socio-economic activities
including transport and communication, as well as loss of life
and property. Floods happen in varying locations and at
varying magnitudes giving them markedly different
effects on the environment. Having a better understanding
of flood causes can help you better prepare and perhaps
minimize or prevent flood damage.
This paper focused quantifying the storm runoff,
identifying various flow impediments along the main channel
of the Tullahan River, identifying the tributaries of the
Tullahan River and locating the possible groundwater
recharge areas
This study emphasizes the importance of flood forecasting
for giving the people an idea for the enhancement in flood
resilient measures. This study also focused on quantifying
the storm runoff, identifying various flow impediments along
the main channel of the Tullahan River, identifying the
tributaries of the Tullahan River, and locating the possible
groundwater recharge areas

2. Review of Literature

Rivers are considered as one of the providers of water
and energy for the nature and the human. The provision of
water has been the most important economical role of the
rivers and the suitable design of a river intake is one of the
oldest issues in hydraulic engineering. However, due to
complexity of river flows, designing an intake in a natural
river has remained as an important topic in the river
engineering.(Mansouri et al., 2014)
Floods are always considered to be one of the major
hazards which could cause great disaster. The impact of high
flooding on people and property could also be very
significant. Especially possible extreme flooding due to dam
failure poses extra risks to people and property in river
valleys downstream of the dams.( Ehsan et al., 2013)
Flooding has been a feature of daily life in Manila since
at least the 19th century. When rains were particularly
strong or tides are high, the natural drainage system was
unable to cope with the sudden volume of water and the city
was turned into one vast lake that its inhabitants had to
traverse by canoe.(Bankoff, 2003)

2.1. Types of flooding

Leonardo Liongson and Peter Castro classify flooding in
Manila into three types:

2.1.1. Local street flooding
Result of intense, sudden thunderstorms over a few city
blocks that cause inundations of 2050centimetres, light
property damage and heavy traffic congestion. Such events
occur all over the metropolitan area but are more frequent in
low-lying areas.
[A]
legartemonique17@gmail.com
[B]
totzbi07@yahoo.com
[C]
juli_palparan@yahoo.com
[D]
christiantabianan@yahoo.com






2.1.2 .Moderate flooding
Produced by intense rainfall of over an hours duration
that is often associated with tropical cyclones and affects a
wide area of the city with inundations of more than 30
centimetres. Damage to property can be considerable; there
may be isolated cases of personal injury or even loss of life;
and whole districts become impassable to vehicle movement.

2.1.2. Regional flooding
On the other hand, affects whole cities and may cover
several river basins. It is a large scale condition consequent
upon typhoons that ensues from heavy rainfall lasting over
several days and maybe aggravated by high tides or storm
surges.




2.2. HEC-RAS Tool Description

According to the study of Yuan and Qaiser (2011)
Floodplain Modeling in the Kansas River Basin Using
Hydrologic Engineering Center (HEC) Models: Impacts of
Urbanization and Wetlands for Mitigation, Hydrologic
Engineering Centers River Analysis System (HEC-RAS) is a
one dimensional model, intended for hydraulic analysis of
river channels.
The model is comprised of a graphical user interface,
separate hydraulic analysis components, data storage and
management capabilities, graphics and reporting facilities.
The HEC-RAS system includes four river analysis
components. They include the steady flow water surface
profile computations, unsteady flow simulation, sediment
transport computations and water quality analysis. In
addition to these components, the model contains several
hydraulic design features that can be invoked once the basic
water surface profiles are computed.
This tool is commonly used and have been employed for
conducting various types of studies including building flood
forecasting and flood inundation models (Knebl et al., 2005;
Whiteaker et al., 2006), analyzing different flood control
alternatives (Benavides et al., 2001), addressing social
impacts of small dam removals (Wyrick et al., 2009), and
developing a flood early warning system (Matkan et al.,
2009).

3. Method of Analysis

This research study was conducted based on the
methodology. This methodology plays an important role in
implementing this research study accordingly. The details of
the methodology are explained in detail in this chapter.







Fi
g. 3.1
Proce
dural
Proce
dural
Meth
odolo
gy
\

T
he
rese
arch
locat
ion of the study have different stations namely Fairview
Bridge located in Fairview, Quezon City, Gulod Bridge in
Novaliches, Quezon City, North Expressway Bridge in Sta.
Queteria extension, Caloocan City, Tullahan Bridge in Mc
Arthur Highway, Valenzuela City, Governor Pascual Bridge
in Malabon, and Bangkulasi Bridge in Bangkulasi, Navotas,
considered as the mouth of the river leading to Manila Bay.
This study focused on implementing 1-D hydraulic model
of Tullahan River for flood forecasting. To delineate
the base map, the researchers referred on the contoured map
of the NAVOTAS MALABON TENEJEROS
TULLAHAN (NMTT) river basin.
The researchers took the rainfall data at the Philippine
Atmospheric Geophysical and Astronomical Services
Administration (PAGASA), Land Used Map At the Local
Government Units in CAMANAVA and Quezon City, Soil
Map at the Bureau of Soil and Contour Maps at NAMRIA.
The researchers also conducted an interview with a
hydrologist at PAGASA - flood forecasting.
The researchers used the data of a previous group as their
missing rainfall data, Bernabe et.al, Engr. Aranda 1
st

semester (SY 2013-2014), Development of Synthetic
Rainfall data for future Hydrologic-Hydraulics Studies of
CAMANAVA Area, which gave the missing rainfall data of
the Polo, Valenzuela, the rainfall intensity per stations, the
average Rainfall Intensity (I).
The researchers used Hydrologic Model, Hydrologic
Engineering Centers-River Analysis System (HEC-RAS) and
AutoCAD Civil 3D. HEC-RAS was used for the One-
dimensional (1D) Hydraulic Model that needed to
accomplish the research objectives. While Auto-CAD Civil
3D was used in determining the Tullahan River basin.


4. Results and Discussions

4.1 AutoCAD Analysis

The following were the scanned Countoured Maps
occupied by the whole Tullahan River provided by the
NAMRIA. They were all connected together using AutoCAD
Civil 3D to be able for the researchers to trace the entire
river.




Figure 4-1. Base Map of the Tullahan River

4.2 Rainfall Computation Results

The researchers used the five (5) years Rainfall Average
Intensity of 1 hour duration for the analysis of the study.

Table 1
Equivalent Average Intensity of Extreme Values in the Tullahan River
Basin



4.3 HECRAS Analysis

The following are the results after tracing the river reach
after inserting all the elevations and lengths at the cross
sections of the Tullahan River.









Figure 4-2 Closer look at the X-Y-Z-Perspective Plot of Tullahan River










Figure 4-3. Station 2 Cross Section (Tinejeros, Malabon)


4.4 Data and Result Interpretation

Figure 4.2 shows the X-Y-Z perspective plot of
Tullahan River using HEC-RAS. The red line symbolizes the
Riverbanks while the blue colour symbolizes water. If the
water exceeds at the red line, it means that flood occurred in
that area.
Figure 4.3 shows one of the cross section of the station
the researchers designated in Tullahan River, which can be
found in Tinejeros, Malabon. The researchers use the 5 year
rainfall data for this cross section. At this Station , the level
of water was 1.45 meters from the riverbanks which was a
moderate level of flood. Many people living near this station
of the river were affected by the moderate flooding.

Table 2
Quantification of flooded areas around the Tullahan River


5. Summary and Conclusion

Based on the results of our evaluation regarding the 5 years
Rainfall in Tullahan river, the researchers found out that:

At Station 1, a station at Navotas, has a low level of water
because of Tidal Fluctuations, the vertical difference between
the high tide and the succeeding low tide.
At Station 2, the level of water was 1.45 meters from the
riverbanks which was a moderate level of flood. Many people
living near this station of the river were affected by the
moderate flooding.
At Station 3, an area at Valenzuela City, has two different levels
of riverbanks. At the left of bank, the level of water was 1.78
meters high which affects people around it while the right of
bank which has a higher level of bank compared to the left one,
still has a flood at a moderate level which was .80 meters high.
At Station 4, the McArthur Bridge at Valenzuela City, showed
that at the left of bank, there was a moderate level of flood
which affects some industrial plants while the right of bank has
no flood because of its higher elevation.
At Station 5 which was the North Luzon Expressway (NLEX)
Bridge where many informal settlers are living, were also
affected by flood. In the left of bank, theres a low level of flood
while the right of bank has a moderate level of flood.
At Station 6, a station near Talipapa, Quezon City, the
researchers noticed the elevation of the left of bank was
high but theres an open space land wherein a few are
living. While at the right bank that has many people
living around, were affected by a high level of flood.
At Station 7, some of the informal settlers living around
the river were affected by a high level of flood.




At Station 8, a part of Quezon City wherein the level of
flood from the ground was just low. The elevation was
high but the water still overflowed resulting to a low level
of flood at the left of bank while at the right of bank, there
was a moderate level of flood that affects some people
living near the river.
At Station 9, the researchers noticed that the left of bank
has a high elevation that was not affected by flood while
the right of bank has no flood too. But the level of water
was already near the riverbanks.
At Station 10, there are many formal settlers and a few
informal settlers wherein in both sides of the river were
not affected by floods.


Acknowledgments

The success of this project wont possible without the
support and help of other people. We would like to express
our deepest appreciation to them. Their presences were one
of our keys to accomplishing this project.
Foremost, we would like to express our sincere gratitude
to the very patient Engr. Hadji Peejay Aranda for providing
us his advice, support and immense knowledge on the
different aspects of our study. We are very grateful to have
him as our Adviser. We owe him a huge debt of gratitude for
providing us with a wealth of knowledge and information
regarding our study.
The assistance, cooperation and experience of our fellow
classmates were essential for the completion of the different
data used in our study. The previous group who provided us
with the data we needed to accomplish this project.
Our dear parents who supported us not only financially,
but morally. They gave us those words of encouragements
during those times of our struggles. For motivating us until
we were able to accomplish everything.
Lastly, the Almighty God for giving us the courage and
strength in everything we do regarding this project. We
could never have done this without the faith we have in you,
the Almighty.

References

[1] Ramin Mansouri, Ali Naghi Ziaei, Kazem Esmaili, Hosein Zahedi
Khameneh. Study of Hydraulic Properties and Design Criteria for New
River Subsurface Water Harvesting Method.
[2]Saqib Ehsan and Silke Wieprecht. Estimation of possible Flooding Risks
for Enhancement in Flood Resilience in River Valleys.
[3]Bankoff,Greg, 2003. Constructing Vulnerability: The Historical,Natural
and Social Generation of Flooding in Metropolitan Manila
[4]Liongson,L.Q, FLOOD MITIGATION IN METRO MANILA
[5]Yuan,Qaiser, 2011. Floodplain Modeling in the Kansas River Basin
Using Hydrologic Engineering Center (HEC) Models: Impacts of
Urbanization and Wetlands for Mitigation.