Abstract
Flooding is a worldwide phenomenon. Over the last few decades the world has experienced a rising number of devastating flood events and the trend in such natural disasters is increasing. Furthermore, escalations in both the probability and magnitude of flood hazards are expected as a result of climate change. Flood defence embankments are one of the major flood defence measures and stability assessment for these structures is therefore a very important process. Traditional deterministic approaches to stability analysis do not allow taking into account and quantifying the uncertainties in soil characterisation. For this reason they may not be sufficient to capture the failure of flood embankments. The paper presents a probabilistic approach for the stability analysis of flood embankments taking into account the probabilistic distribution of soil hydro-mechanical properties. The approach is validated against the failure case study of the Adige river embankment in Italy, by comparing the probability of failure of two sections, within and outside the failure segment respectively.
Highlights
In the current engineering practice, the common methods for designing or verifying geotechnical structures, such as dams or embankments, are mostly deterministic
In the context of slope stability, the result of a deterministic stability analysis is a single value of the Factor of Safety; the failure corresponds to a value of Factor of Safety lower than or equal to one
With a probabilistic approach the result is expressed in terms of probability of failure, which corresponds to the probability of observing a Factor of Safety lower than or equal to one
Summary
In the current engineering practice, the common methods for designing or verifying geotechnical structures, such as dams or embankments, are mostly deterministic. This means they treat soil property values as if they were fixed, and precisely known. In the context of slope stability, the result of a deterministic stability analysis is a single value of the Factor of Safety; the failure corresponds to a value of Factor of Safety lower than or equal to one This approach fails to give a complete description of the full range of the possible outcomes. The analysis is developed with reference to a segment of embankment along the Adige River in the North of Italy (Fig. 1), where a failure was observed in 1981 during a flood event
Sign-in/Register to view highlights & summary Sign-in/Register to access full text options 
Free) 
Talk to us
Join us for a 30 min session where you can share your feedback and ask us any queries you have
Schedule a call
