Short Course on Debris and Water Flood Modelling
Professor Reinaldo Garcia from Florida International University, USA visited WIT to present a short course entitled Debris and Water Flood Modelling.

Over a period of two days lectures were presented on the following topics:
  • Fundamentals of debris flows
  • Fundamentals of water floods
  • Introduction to the FLO-2D model including solution methods
  • Using the FLO-2D model to simulate water floods
  • Practical hands-on sessions with the FLO-2D model
  • Modelling of channels, levees, streets, buildings
  • Hazard map methodology for debris flows
This course presented an introduction to debris flow and water flow modelling in urban areas, and focussed on providing the essential theory governing debris flows and water flooding that allowed participants to start simple but practical flood modelling tasks. The course described the FLO-2D model software and practical hands-on sessions allowed the user to simulate flooding over irregular terrain and urban areas.

The course had the following objectives:
  • To provide basic understanding of debris flows using the Bingham formulation
  • To provide capabilities for modelling debris and water floods in urban areas
  • To use the FLO-2D model to simulate overland flow for projects in urban regions
  • To develop hazard maps based on the model results
reinaldogarcia2.jpgProf. Reinaldo Garcia is a hydraulic engineer specialized in flow modelling. He is the co-developer of FLO-2D that is one of the flood simulation models approved by the U.S. Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA).  He has published numerous peer-reviewed articles related to modelling. He has also developed 2D and 3D free surface flow models, and pollutants and sediment transport models. In 1996 he led the development of HydroTrack and OilTrack, two commercial models to simulate 2D free surface hydrodynamics, pollutant transport and oil spills. From 2000 to 2003 he was the manager of a project to develop flood hazard maps using FLO-2D on more than 20 alluvial fans in Northern Venezuela that were impacted by severe mud and debris flows in December 1999. Reinaldo was a professor at the University of Central Venezuela for 25 years where he taught computational fluid dynamics, finite element method in hydraulics and numerical methods. He earned a Master degree from the Ecole Polytechnique de Montreal, Canada and a PhD from the University of Central Venezuela. He was a Research Fellow at Wessex Institute of Technology from 1997 to 1998 and is now Senior Research Scientist at the Applied Research Center of Florida International University.

reinaldogarcia.jpg