Conclusions

Modeling this area with a 2-dimensional flood model is critical for understanding urban flooding risks.  We can see how the details of the 2-dimensional model are helpful for decision making and for how to implement flood mitigation strategies in high risk areas.

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The City of Madison has some specific flood mitigation projects.  These project range from keeping sewer grates free of debris to building run-off ponds.  Before making a direct recommendation on how to mitigate flooding in the impacted areas that we investigated, we would need to better know the effect on flooding from storm sewer overflow.  Since there is not much land area un-developed to build a storm water pond, it would be better to upgrade existing storm sewer infrastructure to convey larger volumes of water in order to move the water away from the residential and commercial areas with higher flood risks.

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Further work could be done by collecting specific bridge geometries to incorporate into the model.  The model could also be expanded upon by incorporating the water levels of Lake Mendota and Lake Monona for use in the boundary conditions for the water flow.  Further inquiry into the effect of storm sewer backup would also benefit the flood model for this area.