Reliability Underseepage Assessment of Levees Incorporating Geomorphic Features and Length Effects

It has been estimated that approximately fifty percent of the United States’ population lives behind levees. Because these earth structures are typically long, subjected to seasonal changes and spatial variability, it is logical to analyze them in an uncertainty-based approach. This research is focused on assessing the potential of internal erosion related failure due to underseepage with the general objective of assessing the failure potential of individual geomorphic features while considering length effects. The project team was granted $204,000 from the National Science Foundation and$10,000 from the United States Society on Dams which resulted in research collaboration within graduate students and University of Delaware faculty as well as several presentations in prestigious conferences (in the U.S and Europe) and publication of journal papers. Findings from this research should be easily transferrable to other linear earth structures (such as dams, construction excavations, detention ponds, road embankments, etc.), and should significantly enhance reliability analysis across a wide array of structure types and geologic settings allowing a broad impact on future research, as well as geotechnical engineering practice

Flood Risk Assessment, Management and Perceptions in a Changing World

Floods are a global challenge that is increasing due to changes in climate and human populations. Using an interdisciplinary approach, this work contributes novel methodologies and knowledge to three key challenges associated with floods. The first chapter builds upon the atmospheric and statistical sciences to provide a general methodology for climate informed approaches to projecting long-term flood events based on large-scale ocean-atmospheric processes. The second chapter builds upon the engineering, decision analysis, and economics disciplines to integrate climate-informed projections with decision-scaling, a decision-making under uncertainty framework, to further flood risk management. The third chapter builds upon the social sciences to provide new knowledge on flood risk perception and mitigation in West Africa. The outcomes of this work contribute important advancements to addressing the clear and urgent need for solutions to floods around the world

Evaluating the Use of sUAS-Derived Imagery for Monitoring Flood Protection Infrastructure

In the US there are approximately 33,000 miles of levees. This includes 14,500 miles of levee systems associated with US Army Corps of Engineers programs and approximately 15,000 miles from other state and federal agencies. More than 14 million people live behind levees and associated flood prevention infrastructure. Monitoring and risk assessment are an on-going process, especially during times of flood conditions. The city of New Orleans was heavily impacted by Hurricane Katrina in 2005 by storm surges and intense rainfall. The impact of the hurricane was substantial enough to cause levee failure and I-wall toppling where many of the levees were breached and waters flooded the city. Subsidence and increasing population are likely to make flooding events more frequent and costly. As new technologies emerge, monitoring and risk assessment can benefit to increase community resiliency. In this research, I investigate the use of the structure from motion photogrammetric method to monitor positional changes in invariant objects such as levees, specifically, I-walls. This method uses conventional digital images from multiple view locations and angles by either a moving aerial platform or terrestrial photography. Using parallel coded software and accompanying hardware, 3D point clouds, digital surface models and orthophotos can be created. By providing comparisons of similar processing workflows with a variety of imaging acquisition criteria using commercially available unmanned aerial systems (UAS), we created multiple image sets of a simulated I-wall at various flight elevations, look angles, and effective overlap. The comparisons can be used for sensor selection and mission planning to improve the quality of the final product

Coastal Land Loss and Collaborative Resource Governance: The Case of Plaquemines Parish, Louisiana

The research, presented here, is about the collaborative governance and adaptive management in coastal planning efforts of Louisiana. Fundamental conflict, between the idea of environmental conservation and developmental growth, has always existed in the coastal regions. The presence of the large number of environmental laws, at various levels of government and their different management objectives for utilization of coastal resources, requires study of intergovernmental relationship. Taking Plaquemines Parish as a case in point, this thesis will, therefore, review the critical restoration plans for intergovernmental coordination and conflicts. It will also provide recommendations, for elected representatives and policy makers, with an aim to promote collaborative governance and improve adaptive management of coastal resources

Managing Risk Assessment Stakeholder Engagement Processes: A Case Study

Risk engineers conduct comprehensive risk assessments for many types of large projects, often singularly focused on the technical assessment and its value to the technical engineering team. Limiting or excluding community stakeholder involvement from the assessment process increases stakeholder skepticism, apprehension, and mistrust regarding safety, health and welfare of those stakeholders living or working nearby. Social experts have repeatedly documented connections between perception framing, communication processes, and risks. This research considers the connections between stakeholder perceptions and communication plans associated with risks listed in the risk register, and communication plans designed based upon including social expert suggestions for six projects: three bio-safety laboratories; two levee system assessment projects; and one Superfund site. The project risk assessment value is researched through the lens of risk perception and communication planning via the risk register. The concept of a Risk Perception Management (RPM) Plan developed in collaboration with social science experts and integrated with the risk register is presented. This research shows how the RPM concept iteratively captures stakeholder perceptions to build associated communication plans, thus increasing risk assessment value for stakeholders and decision-makers

Sea Level Rise Adaptation Plan for Transportation Infrastructure and Other Critical Resources in the Eureka Slough Hydrographic Area, Humboldt Bay

This plan (study) presents a framework for developing sea level rise adaptation strategies within the highly vulnerable Eureka Slough hydrographic area of Humboldt Bay. The purpose of the study was to work with public agencies, landowners, scientists, and stakeholders to better understand the specific flood risks to the transportation infrastructure and other critical resources within the study area and to identify viable adaptation measures in the near-term planning horizon (now through mid-century) for the most at-risk locations. A primary focus of the study was to develop a scenario-based planning approach for understanding the range of possible impacts and consequences resulting from tidal and fluvial flood hazards under current conditions and with future sea level rise. This approach included detailed hydraulic analysis and an evaluation of the anticipated response of the coastal landscape to various flooding events. The plan is intended to help advance the collective understanding of flood risks and improve the readiness for implementing effective sea level rise adaptation projects. This plan is a technical resource for ongoing planning and adaptation efforts but is not a decision document and does not represent a commitment to implement the project concepts discussed in the plan

An integrated and dynamic framework for assessing sustainable resilience in complex adaptive systems

Growing awareness of climate change and resulting impacts to communities have generated increasing interest in understanding relationships between vulnerability, resilience, sustainability, and adaptive capacity, and how these concepts can be combined to better assess the quality of complex adaptive systems over time. Previous work has described interactions between these concepts and the value-added should they be integrated and applied in a strategic manner, resulting in a new understanding of system quality defined as sustainable resilience. However, a framework for explicitly integrating vulnerability, resilience, and sustainability assessment to develop understanding of system sustainable resilience has yet to be proposed. This paper presents a high-level, integrated and dynamic framework for assessing sustainable resilience for complex adaptive systems. We provide a set of functional definitions, a description of each step in the proposed assessment process, and walk through an example application of the framework, including a discussion of preliminary analyses, technical methodologies employed, and suggested future advances