Risk based portfolio planning of dike reinforcements

A system of dikes in flood-prone areas continuously requires measures to mitigate changes such as ageing and climate change. Planning costly measures requires proper insight into system risk effects. Especially in a riverine dike system, the risk contributions of individual assets to the system flood risks are not independent, because...

Vulnerability of villages in the Dutch Geul valley

Assessing economic risk, safety standards, and decision-making

Risk-informed decision-making needs methods for assessing flood risk, and often the flooding probability and the consequences of floods (such as economic damage and fatalities) play an important role in the risk assessment. Also, measures to reduce the flood risk need to be formulated, in order to make a risk-informed decision, whether to...

Expert judgment-based reliability analysis of the Dutch flood defense system

The Wettelijk Beoordelingsinstrumentarium (WBI) is the legal set of instruments for flood risk analysis in the Netherlands. Often, engineers have the impression that some failure probabilities of flood defenses resulting from these instruments are overestimated. In an effort to better estimate the failure probabilities of dikes along the...

Flood risk reduction by parallel flood defences – Case-study of a coastal multifunctional flood protection zone

In this paper the safety of a double-dike system (or twin dikes) is assessed. Such a system consist of two parallel lines of flood defences. During storms the combined strength of the parallel flood defences must prevent flooding of the hinterland. A culvert can be implemented for the tidal exchange of sea water to enable new land-uses in the...

Large-scale stochastic flood hazard analysis applied to the Po River

Reliable hazard analysis is crucial in the flood risk management of river basins. For the floodplains of large, developed rivers, flood hazard analysis often needs to account for the complex hydrology of multiple tributaries and the potential failure of dikes. Estimating this hazard using deterministic methods ignores two major aspects of...

How natural processes contribute to flood protection: A sustainable adaptation scheme for a wide green dike

Effective adaptation to sea-level rise is critical for future flood protection. Nature-based solutions including salt marshes have been proposed to naturally enhance coastal infrastructure. A gently sloping grass-covered dike (i.e. Wide Green Dike) can be strengthened with clay accumulating locally in the salt marsh. This study explores the...

Economic optimization of coastal flood defense systems

Coastal flood defense systems can consist of multiple lines of defense. In case of a system with a front and a rear defense (e.g. a storm surge barrier and levees), the front defense can improve the reliability of the rear defense by reducing the load on this rear defense. This paper develops a framework in order to assess whether including...