The effect of climate change on stage-discharge bondary conditions in interconnected river delta (sub) models

Climate change impacts river deltas world-wide,
now and in the future. To study impacts and
mitigate effects, hydrodynamic models are often
used. Developing these models poses
challenges to its developers: the boundaries of
these models should be chosen such that the
model generates accurate predictions within the
domain of interest. This is a fundamental, but
difficult choice (Jakeman et al., 2006). As deltas
are often interconnected networks of rivers and
canals both bifurcating and confluencing,
creating backwater curves, system dynamics
quickly become complex. Choosing suitable
boundaries is therefore not straightforward:
modelling only part of a delta (i.e. using a
submodel) might not capture important
feedback mechanisms, increasing uncertainty
due to boundary conditions (Berends et al.,
2018), which can travel far into the model
(Domeneghetti et al., 2013). Contrary:
increasing the domain increases computational
expenses. Finding a balance is up to the
developer. This research investigates to what
extent hydrodynamics in such complex
networks can be modelled in parts by
addressing the accuracy of boundary conditions
of such submodels.