CLIENT: PWA Ltd.
YEAR: 1998 - 2000
SUMMARY: It is a basin with a major development related to the wine industry, the tourism industry and the agriculture industry. Throughout the decades of economic activities and population growth, old criteria and standards for flood control and for the uses of the floodplains, resulted in the a reduction of floodplain capacities of the river with implications for the management of urban and rural flooding as well as to the natural functioning of river ecosystems. In this framework a simulation model that enabled a strategy for environmental restoration of the Basin focused on the river and its floodplains was developed.
RESULTS: The project allowed innovative actions in terms of environmental restoration of river ecosystems, such as the reconstruction of historical flood plains of the river, allowing the river to expand and flood those terraces when low recurrence hydrological phenomena occur. At the same time a park was designed in the center of the city of Napa at the location of an ancient natural elbow bend in the river so that it can be flooded when the flow is not enough to be contained in the regular course of the river without causing negative impacts, nor causing accidents of any kind on the city.
This means dynamic and adaptive strategies for urban planning. These strategies of adaptation to the variability of natural systems is made possible by available simulation capabilities that provide insight with high levels of trust on the natural behavior for phenomena with a variety of time recurrences.