Assessing the Impact of Extensive Severe Cyclonic Storm Fani on the Coastal Communities of Bangladesh: A Case Study

This research article presents a numerical simulation of the extensive severe cyclonic storm Fani and its impact along the coast of Bangladesh, which made landfall in the coastal region of Odisha, India, on May 3, 2019. A semi-implicit finite difference method in Cartesian coordinates was employed in this study to solve vertically integrated shallow water equations. The approach allowed for effective forecasting of the storm Fani's impact on the region of choice. Our considered physical domain is discretized with high-resolution gird to cover all the big and small offshore islands. The model predicted water levels for a total of sixteen coastal stations of the Bay of Bengal along the coast of Bangladesh (from 2 May to 03 May 2019, at 3-h interval). Simulated water levels are found closely co-related to the reported data. The simulation results demonstrate that the semi-implicit finite difference method is an effective tool for simulating the storm surge and flooding caused by any severe cyclonic storm. The study also shows that the storm surge and flooding caused by Fani were significant, with a maximum surge height of over 5 meters in some areas. The simulated results provide insights into the spatial and temporal evolution of the storm surge and flooding, which can be useful for designing and implementing appropriate disaster management strategies in the affected regions. Overall, this research article contributes to the scientific understanding of the behavior of severe cyclonic storms and the associated storm surge and flooding, and provides a valuable tool for policymakers and stakeholders to develop and implement effective disaster management strategies in cyclone vulnerable coastal regions.