Thursday, June 2, 2016

How to delineate flood limits in Civil 3D using HEC-RAS 5

With the release of HEC-RAS 5, we now have between Civil 3D and HEC-RAS all the tools we need to send our terrain and stream geometry from Civil 3D to HEC-RAS, delineate flood limits in HEC-RAS, and send the inundation limits back to Civil 3D.
Watch the 10-minute video


The quick outline of the process for a simple stream is like this:
  1. Prepare terrain, stream centerline, and cross sections in Civil 3D.
  2. Send to HEC-RAS
  3. Add roughness coefficients, banks, flow, and boundary conditions (elevations).
  4. Compute water surface profile in HEC-RAS
  5. Map inundation limits in the RAS Mapper feature of HEC-RAS
  6. Import to Civil 3D
Don't hesitate to ask for additional info if you are stuck.  We can do this!

Stream Geometry

See this post to get stream geometry from Civil 3D to HEC-RAS.

Terrain

In Civil 3D, create a Geotiff Civil 3D Terrain Export file of the cross section surface.

  1. Right-click the surface in Toolspace, Prospector
  2. Choose Export to DEM.... 
  3. Specify the file.  Be sure to choose GEOTIFF instead of DEM file type.
  4. Make sure a geographic projection is set right.  Talk to a GIS person or comment below if you need help with this.  (If nothing else, do this: Under Toolspace, Settings, right-click your drawing name and select Edit Drawing Settings, Units and Zone, Available coordinate systems, and pick the system that seems most appropriate to you.  Then use the GEOMAP command (you will have to sign in to Autodesk A360) to bring in a map at world coordinates and move your project into approximate place on that map.)

Export to DEM from Civil 3D.  Make sure a projection is set right.

In HEC-RAS, go to GIS Tools, RAS Mapper.  Start with a blank new Mapper.
Do not set a projection.
Tools, New Terrain...
Answer No to skip setting a projection.  Civil 3D terrain will not add with projection already set.

Click the + to add the Civil 3D Terrain Export file.  Accept to use the projection in the file.  Click Create. Bug in HEC-RAS 6.2: When you get a creation error in proj_get_ellipsoid, use Create New Terrain again, but add the tif file HEC-RAS created on your first attempt (probably in the Terrain sub-folder).

Calculate Water Surface

Use HEC-RAS Geometric Data, Tables menu to set Manning Roughness for all cross sections.
Use HEC-RAS Steady Flow Data to add flow and reach boundary elevation conditions.  Use critical depth for a quick and dirty start.  But normal depth is usually better if you don't have known water surface elevations at the ends of your stream.
Use HEC-RAS Steady Flow Analysis, Compute button to calculate the water surface.
HEC-RAS basic analysis buttons

Inundation Limits

Show inundation limits in RAS Mapper

Make sure you have saved your Plan under the Steady Flow Analysis File menu.
In HEC-RAS RAS Mapper, go to Tools, Manage Results Maps.
Click Add New Map button.
Choose Inundation Boundary under Map Type.  Click Add Map button.
Highlight Inundation Boundary line in Manage Results Maps. Click Compute/Update Stored Maps.  This creates the inundation boundary including the shape files you need in Civil 3D, located somewhere under your HEC-RAS project folder in a group named Inundation*.*

Import Inundation limits into Civil 3D

MAPIMPORT command.
Check the box to change regions to polylines.
Import the inundation shp file. 

Smooth inundation limits

Use PEDIT Spline to smooth the plines or...
Use WeedFeatures multiple (around 10) times with only Close Point Removal, 3D distance checked and set to 5 to 10 times the original export DEM grid spacing.

And finally a conscientious plea: Go hug and thank a family member and then move your money from a bank to a credit union.

11 comments:

Unknown said...

Thanks for demonstrating this method.

Once you've done the HEC-RAS model, another way to show the inundation limits is to create a water surface using the section lines and compare it with the terrain:
1. change the sampled section lines to be at the calculated water surface elevations
2. build a new surface from them
3. create a composite surface, based on the terrain and water surfaces
4. extract the 0 elevation contour as a polyline from the composite surface

The new 0 elevation contour exactly matches where the water surface meets the terrain surface; the inundation limits.

Thomas Gail Haws said...

Yes. And that method probably produces better results than a weeded HEC-RAS shape.

Pat Flanagan said...

Thanks! Couldn't get c3d tif to load in rasmapper until I deleted the "set projection" in rasmapper.

The method Aaron mentions is how ArcGIS / rasmapper typically calculates water surface boundaries. Note that sometimes at river bends you need to extend cross sections / cut lines for mapping purposes.

Simbarashe said...

Hi Thomas

Thanks so much for the tutorial.
I am having a challenge when computing/ update stored map for the inundation boundary. Its always showing "Map not Created) and thus i am not able to create the inundation boundary shape file to export to civil 3D. I am using HEC-RAS version 5.0.7.

Regards

Simba

Simbarashe said...

Hi Thomas

I am failing to create a shapefile for the inundation boundary. In RAS Mapper When i try to compute/Update stored map its always showing me "map not created".
What might be the problem?

Regards

Simbarashe

Thomas Gail Haws said...

Sorry. I've never seen that problem.
Tom

Nick Young said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Nick Young said...

I am having the same problem Simbarashe posted in their second comment. Did a resolution ever get figured out?

Thomas Gail Haws said...

Nick,
I am sorry I have never run into that problem. There aren't permissions issues with the destination? You've specified a valid location?

Nick Young said...

Tom,
Before computing the steady flow analysis (7:20 in your tutorial) I went to file in the steady flow analysis dialog box and I had to either manually open a plan file or create a new one. Once manually loaded it worked for me! Thanks!

Thomas Gail Haws said...

Thank you for the solution! I will add the step.
Tom