Civil and Environmental Engineering, Imperial College London
Doi
Abstract
Rainfall has always been an important quantity to measure throughout history due to its
importance in predicting floods and droughts. In the present day, such predictions on the
severity of flooding events are critical so that appropriate flood defences may be constructed
in anticipation of these events to limit any damages. With the increasing concerns of human
influenced (anthropogenic) climate change will affect rainfall, there is a growing need to
quantify and incorporate these events into the design of flood defences, such as earthfill
embankments.
As geotechnical modelling techniques are being developed to assist in the design and upgrading
of earth embankments, various failure mechanisms and the behaviour of the soil within an
embankment are better understood. However, one concern which arises is that there is an
uncertainty on how climate change would affect the performance of these embankments.
Therefore, the main purpose of this research is to identify the key failure mechanisms that may
occur throughout the embankment’s life cycle, taking into account climate change effects, and
to develop solutions to these issues.
A site on the Thames estuary was chosen as the setting for this research. Taking into
consideration a changing climate, sub-daily rainfall was produced for this site using a
combination of stochastic rainfall generators and projected climate variables at the location.
Following calibration and validation analyses for the foundation and embankment soils, a
complete lifecycle analysis framework was established, using the previously generated rainfall
as inputs to the soil-atmosphere boundary. The lifecycle framework was able to inform on both
the general long-term performance of the embankment in a changing climate, and the resilience
of the embankment to future extreme events. With the detailed lifecycle analysis, various
strategies in reusing the embankment by raising it was also explored, to improve the
embankment’s adaptability to future climate.Open Acces
