Tracing and visualisation of contributing water sources in the LISFLOOD-FP model of flood inundation

We describe the formulation of a simple method of water source tracing for computational models of flood inundation and demonstrate its implementation within CAESAR-Lisflood. Water source tracing can provide additional insight into flood dynamics by accounting for flow pathways. The method developed is independent of the hydraulic formulation used, allowing it to be implemented in other model codes without affecting flow routing. In addition, we developed a method which allows up to three water sources to be visualised in RGB colour-space, while continuing to allow depth to be resolved. We show the application of the methods developed for example applications of a major flood event, a shallow estuary, and Amazonian wetland inundation. A key advantage of the formulation developed is that the number of water sources which may be traced is limited only by computational considerations. In addition, the method is independent of the hydraulic formulation, meaning that it is relatively straightforward to add to existing finite volume codes including those based on or developed around the LISFLOOD-FP method.