UK Environment Agency Study Confirms Leading Capabilities of InfoWorks ICM

The Environment Agency’s role within the United Kingdom is to reduce the risks to people and properties from flooding; make sure there is enough water for people and wildlife; protect and improve air, land and water quality; and apply the environmental standards within which industry can operate. As part of this role, the agency has published a series of reports since 2009 aimed at ensuring that two-dimensional hydraulic modeling solutions used for flood risk management by the Environment Agency and their consultants are capable of adequately predicting the variables on which flood risk management decisions are based.
The eight tests detailed in the current report were designed to show the suitability of software solutions to the agency’s common flooding applications, including: Large Scale Flood Risk Mapping, Catchment Flood Management Planning, Flood Risk Assessment and Detailed Flood Mapping, Strategic Flood Risk Assessment, Flood Hazard Mapping, Contingency Planning for Real Time Flood Risk Management, and Reservoir Inundation Mapping.
The InfoWorks ICM 2D component uses an advanced finite-volume solution scheme which solves shallow water equations across a flexible, irregular mesh. This allows it to calculate complex two-dimensional flow routes quickly and accurately in areas of complex and varying topography. The solver is fully conservative and shock-capturing, allowing the solution to deal with changes in the flow regime. As a result, InfoWorks ICM is particularly well-suited for the simulation of rapidly varying flows, such as those occurring in typical flood events.
The robust and quick two-dimensional hydrodynamic simulation engine is only one part of the rich functionalityInfoWorks ICM offers within a single user interface. Combining full one-dimensional hydraulic capabilities for piped and river networks with integrated hydrology modeling and water quality functionality, InfoWorks ICMoffers a complete package of functionality for engineers modeling drainage networks, open channels, rivers and floodplains.
The UK report results also highlight InfoWorks ICM’s ability to apply Graphic Processing Units (GPUs) to significantly increase the speed of two-dimensional run times. Complex two-dimensional simulations that would typically take hours to run on a regular PC can be completed with GPU technology in just a few minutes.InfoWorks ICM was the only solution able to employ this advanced technology to all tests in the study, including 1D-2D linkages. In addition, InfoWorks ICM features Esri (Redlands, CA) ArcGIS compatibility and integration at the core of the solution and works with both the 32-bit and 64-bit editions of the latest Microsoft (Redmond, WA) Windows 8 and Windows Server 2012 operating systems.
“We at Innovyze are delighted that the UK Environment Agency’s latest report validates our efforts to makeInfoWorks ICM the very best solution available to government agencies and engineering consultancies worldwide,” said Paul F. Boulos, Ph.D., BCEEM, Hon.D.WRE, Dist.D.NE, F.ASCE, President, COO and Chief Technical Officer of Innovyze. “Since submitting results to the study, we have continued to aggressively develop and enhance InfoWorks ICM, adding improved water quality options, terrain-sensitive meshing, 2D structures, breach modeling capabilities and further speed gains in the 1-D engine. Our clients deserve nothing less in support of their efforts to plan, design, manage and operate more sustainable infrastructure and provide good value and satisfaction to their customers.”
More Information
The full report “Benchmarking the latest generation of 2D hydraulic flood modelling packages” is available on the Environment Agency website at http://evidence.environment-agency.gov.uk/FCERM/Libraries/FCERM_Project_Documents/SC120002_Benchmarking_2D_hydraulic_models_Report.sflb.ashx.
Further information on the performance of InfoWorks ICM in the report is available on the Innovyze Insider Blog at http://blog.innovyze.com/2013/08/20/uk-environment-agency-study-confirms-leading-capabilities-of-infoworks-icm/.
An overview of InfoWorks ICM, including an introductory video, is available on the Innovyze website athttp://www.innovyze.com/products/infoworks_icm/.