Get prepared for unexpected disasters via advanced analytics and simulation techniques for urban hydraulic engineering and water infrastructure

Nowadays, water infrastructure faces even more significant challenges during disasters. Disaster events of water infrastructure are often the result of the joint action of human activities and natural factors, and its mechanism is very complex. Therefore, deploying an effective monitoring and control system with intelligent equipment and technology integration is essential for disaster simulation analysis, especially in water conservancy projects and urban environmental systems. Using scientific and theoretical models, monitoring data, and computer technology in a synergistic manner becomes appealing and necessary. Preventing damage to water conservancy projects is the first priority for disaster prediction. As such, intelligent simulation techniques are increasingly important in disaster prevention analysis and mitigating water system challenges. This special issue aims to publish original research and review articles covering the latest developments in applying hazard analysis and simulation techniques for urban hydraulic engineering and water systems. The detailed contribution of each paper is highlighted in the following section.

This special issue introduces several current hotspots on disaster analysis and simulation in urban hydraulic engineering and water infrastructure, including emerging real-time flood forecasting methods, advanced volume of fluid (VOF) model, computational fluid dynamics approach, system dynamic approach, pollution prediction model for water quality, and water infrastructure planning strategy. In addition, some new development trends in this field are summarized.

Abraham et al. (2022) applied a system dynamic approach to simulate a chain of four tanks in the Guduvanchery watershed, Tamil Nadu, India, and VENSIM was used for the system dynamic simulation to assess water availability for the sustainable management of water resources.

Cao et al. (2022) developed a three-dimensional computational fluid dynamics approach to elaborate the water-hammer pipe flow and detailed dynamic characteristics of a closing ball valve, in which the water compressibility and the viscous sublayer were considered. The developed approach better reproduced the pressure oscillations while helping to visualize the associated physical processes and further exploring the transient characteristics.

Li & Yu (2023) selected 25 villages in the north-central area of Shanxi Province in China for field study to get a comprehensive grasp of the population and land-use conditions. Based on the field study, a water infrastructure planning strategy based on an analysis and evaluation of the present situation was provided, which more effectively integrated the current rural development scenario while adjusting to the trend of population development and resource allocation in rural China.

Shen et al. (2022) developed a robust error estimation method for real-time flood forecasting in reservoirs, in which it repressed the gross errors by a robust loss function based on the real error distribution of measurements.

Sun & Fan (2022) proposed a combined water quality prediction model based on integrated ensemble empirical mode decomposition (EEMD) and cascade support vector machine (Cascade SVM). The proposed combined model showed a substantial superiority in many aspects of performance, such as training efficiency and prediction accuracy.

Wang et al. (2022) developed a VOF model to study the pressure surges and the water–air interface change law with two-sided inflow impacting entrapped air-pocket in deep stormwater storage tunnels. The proposed model could be extended to systems with multiple shafts or air-pockets.

Xu et al. (2022) studied the causes of water environment evolution in the tributary bay and investigated the driving force of eutrophication succession after the Three Gorges Reservoir entered regular operation. A three-dimensional hydrodynamic, water quality, and eutrophication mathematical model for the Meixi tributary bay was developed and calibrated with measured data about the hydrological regime, hydrodynamic factors, and water quality.

All the papers in this special issue provide helpful information for developing new disaster analysis and simulation technologies in urban hydraulic engineering and water infrastructure.

We appreciate the authors' high-quality papers, which have improved our scientific knowledge in disaster analysis and simulation in urban hydraulic engineering and water infrastructure. Furthermore, we would like to express our deepest thanks and gratitude to the reviewers and the IWA Publishing staff who contributed to the successful preparation of this exciting and meaningful special issue.