Backwater Level Computations Due to Bridge Constrictions: An Assessment of Methods

This paper explores different methods of computing backwater depth for open-channel flow, such as one- to multi-dimensional models, finite difference approaches, and artificial intelligence methods. This paper primarily focuses on one-dimensional methods and states the implication, advantages, and disadvantages, verification process, and performance of each method. This paper discusses different parameters that influence backwater and their impact. Additionally, this paper compares the discussed one-dimensional methods with each other due to their common usage of experimental and field datasets as well as their popularity in implementation. It was concluded that while the WSPRO method significantly overestimated and the Yarnell’s method underestimated the afflux value, the measured afflux values are closest to the values computed by the energy and momentum methods.