Flooding along coast lines such as the south Florida coastline can be due to a number of factors, including rainfall, sea level rise, tides, and wind-induced storm surges. In addition to this, the propagation behavior is modified by bottom friction in the canal and the flow interaction between the canal and the adjacent aquifer. Even if the net result of flooding can be observed in the field mostly using water levels, the separation of its contributing components is challenging, considering its "almost simultaneous" nature of some of the forces acting during storm events. This has made it hard to identify the individual physical processes involved, including the physical parameters describing the process. In this situation, the propagation characteristics of the surges can be useful in isolating the most likely contribution of the surge and determining some parameters instead of relying entirely on traditional calibration tools based on least square errors. A number of dimensionless parameters can be used to explain the significance of some of these effects. We present analytical estimates of shallow water wave speeds and attenuation rates for waves traveling along a canal, which can be used to identify the storm surge separately from wind and rainfall effects. We also attempt to reproduce the propagation of the storm surge created during Hurricane Irma along the C111 canal in south Florida using a 1-D numerical model, solving the full St. Venant’s equations using the TVD McCormack method and a linearized implicit method.
