In ArcScene you can simulate floods to know which parts would be affected if a flood were to occur. Although it is only visual, it gives you a general idea of how the event would affect you.
For the development of this exercise requires a DEM, and a polygon of the area to be simulated, additionally to give more realism a satellite image can be added.
The steps to carry out the flood simulation are detailed below (download the practice exercises).
1.- Obtain a DEM, a polygon and optionally a satellite image (all the layers should be of similar surface).
2.- Open ArcScene, load all layers.
3.- Right click on the DEM, go to Properties > Base Heights, activate Floating on a custom surface and select DEM (do the same process if you have a satellite image).
4.- Assign the color blue to the polygon, or any color to represent the floods.
5.- Go to Customize Menu > Toolbars > Animation.
6.- On the Animation toolbar, go to Animation > Animation Manager.
7.- On the Keyframes tab on the left side click Create.
8.- In the Create Animation Keyframe window, in the Type field select Layer, for Source object select the water layer.
In the Destination track field, click New. Then in Keyframe name click Create, and create all the frames that are required for the animation (in this case 10), then close the window.
9.- Again in the Animation Manager window, in the Translation:Z field for each frame, set the elevation value, for example, if the lowest elevation from where you want to increase the water surface starts at 3380 meters above sea level, set this value in the first frame, then for the following frames increase the altitude values until the maximum flood value is reached, then close the window,
10.- Finally, on the Animation toolbar, click on the Open Animations Controls button and click on Options to set the playback time (by duration) and play mode. Once everything is ready click the button to play the simulation.
For clarity on the procedure you can review the following video tutorial (in Spanish, but you can follow the procedure described in this post).