Potential Impact of Flood Control Projects on Hydrological Processes in the Coastal Regions of the Taihu Basin, China

ABSTRACT Due to the intensive human activities, lots of hydraulic facilities were constructed and have a significant impact on hydrological processes and spatial migration of urban floods. For coastal plain regions, the suffering from rainstorms and storm surges, which was always neglected in previous studies, makes the impact more complex. Thus, the potential impact was observed based on a hydrodynamic model with real‐time operations of hydraulic systems. To improve the confidence of the simulation, a joint copula model between maximum rainfall and contemporaneous maximum tide water level was built, which makes up for the lack of consideration in previous coastal flood simulations. Results of quantitative simulation showed that the projects of the Large Encirclement Project in Suzhou urban (LEP) prevented the flood in urban areas efficiently but transferred the flood to the suburb. The Diversion‐Drainage System along the Yangtze River (DDS) had a larger impact on the hydrological processes in the northern regions. This will be of great benefit to the flood management in the Taihu Basin.