Modeling of floods: state of the art and research challenges

International audienceThis chapter presents a state of the art review and research challenges in modeling flood propagation and floodplain inundation. The challenges for flood inundation models are directly linked to the representation of flow processes, to the formulation of theoretical physical laws and to practical considerations. First, we review the various structures of coupled spatially distributed hydrological-hydraulic models and the corresponding spatial representation of flow processes. Second, we present the theoretical basis of 1-D and 2-D Saint-Venant "shallow water" equations with overbank flow, the approximation of Saint-Venant models such as the Diffusive Wave and the Kinematic Wave models and then discuss the domains and limits of applications of each type of models. Practical considerations linked to numerical solution schemes, boundary conditions and model parameterization, calibration, validation and uncertainty analysis were also considered. Finally, the discussion addresses the research challenges for guiding the modeler, according to the principle of parsimony, in seeking the simplest modeling strategy capable of (i) a realistic representation of the physical processes, (ii) matching the performances of more complex models and (iii) providing the right answers for the right reasons