Severe flood events in China are a common cause of life losses. Many efforts have been carried out by the Yellow River Conservancy Commission (YRCC) to understand flood development and impact on the Yellow River. Modeling approaches based on discretization of the modeled domain in square and rectangular grids have great importance in the management of rivers, but they usually present two drawbacks: the required accuracy of the meandering of wide long rivers is not well represented, and the need to use many grid cells reduces computational speed. Modeling and simulation of extreme flood events using unstructured grids has not yet been applied to the Yellow River. This study shows how such a method can be beneficial to decision makers in the Yellow River region in case of flood events. The research shows that a flexible mesh discretization of the domain can overcome the two drawbacks. Along with a test of the proposed modeling method, new characteristics of the spatial evolution of flood events in the Yellow River emerged and are presented, showing the capabilities of DFloridaOW-FM software in modeling such a complex system.@en

Longitudinal and vertical salinity measurements are used in this study to predict the extent of inland seawater intrusion in a deltaic river estuary. A predictive model is constructed to apply to the specific tidal, seasonal, and discharge variability and geometric characteristics of the Shatt al-Arab River (SAR) situated along the border of Iraq and Iran. Reliable hydrologic simulation of salinity dynamics and seawater intrusion was lacking prior to this study. Tidal excursion is simulated analytically using a 1-D analytical salt intrusion model with recently updated equations for tidal mixing. The model was applied under different river conditions to analyse the seasonal variability of salinity distribution during wet and dry periods near spring and neap tides between March 2014 and January 2015. A good fit is possible with this model between computed and observed salinity distribution. Estimating water abstractions along the estuary improves the performance of the equations, especially at low flows and with a well-calibrated dispersion–excursion relationship of the updated equations. Salt intrusion lengths given the current data varied from 38 to 65 km during the year of observation. With extremely low river discharge, which is highly likely there, we predict a much further distance of 92 km. These new predictions demonstrate that the SAR, already plagued with extreme salinity, may face deteriorating water quality levels in the near future, requiring prompt interventions.@en

Hydrological data collection requires deployment of physical infrastructure like rain gauges, water level gauges, as well as use of expensive equipment like echo sounders. Many countries around the world have recorded a decrease in deployment of physical infrastructure for hydrological measurements; developing countries especially have less of this infrastructure and, where it exists, it is poorly maintained. Satellite remote sensing can bridge this gap, and has been applied by hydrologists over the years, with the earliest applications in water body and flood mapping. With the availability of more optical satellites with relatively low temporal resolutions globally, satellite data are commonly used for mapping of water bodies, testing of inundation models, precipitation monitoring, and mapping of flood extent. Use of satellite data to estimate hydrological parameters continues to increase due to use of better sensors, improvement in knowledge of and utilization of satellite data, and expansion of research topics. A review of applications of satellite remote sensing in surface water modelling, mapping and parameter estimation is presented, and its limitations for surface water applications are also discussed.

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