From Lab to River: Green Roughness & Flood Hydraulics - Toward Sustainable Floodplain Design - Dr. Verónica Herrera Gómez

From Lab to River: Green Roughness & Flood Hydraulics - Toward Sustainable Floodplain Design

Flood risk management is a pressing challenge as climate change intensifies extreme weather events and drives the need for sustainable, ecologically functional floodplain designs. In this context, riverine vegetation plays a key role: it stabilizes banks and supports biodiversity, yet its hydraulic roughness can also raise water levels. This dual role -attenuating flood peaks while potentially increasing local risk- creates a fundamental trade-off. This talk examines vegetation roughness across multiple scales, from laboratory experiments to a large-scale river study. By combining event-based field monitoring with 2D hydrodynamic modeling benchmarked against real flood data, the research demonstrates how spatial and temporal variability in vegetation affects flood dynamics. The results highlight pathways to identify optimal vegetation configurations and promote sustainable floodplain management, maximizing flood attenuation and reducing damage in both urban and agricultural settings.