Time-dependent development of Backward Erosion Piping

Structural flood protection systems such as levees are an important component in flood risk reduction strategies. Levees can fail through various failure mechanisms; this thesis focuses on the mechanism Backward Erosion Piping (BEP) which occurs when a sandy levee foundation is eroded by groundwater flow. To assess whether a levee's reliability...

Advancing Flood Risk Screening

Manycoastal cities are struggling with a rapidly growing risk of flooding. The sizeand complexity of these cities often demand a coordinated strategy, consistingof a combination of flood risk reduction measures. A crucial part in the designprocess is the identification of effective flood risk management strategies. However,data and resources are...

A system perspective on flood risk in polder drainage canal systems

A major part of the Netherlands is prone to flooding: roughly 60%. Therefore, a large system of flood defences protects the country from flooding. These flood defences are divided into primary and regional flood defence systems. Primary flood defences protect areas against catastrophical flooding events from the sea, big lakes and major rivers,...

Reliability updating for slope stability: Improving dike safety assessments using performance information

Dikes are crucial for the protection against floods. One of the ways in which dikes can fail is by the instability of the inner slope. Credible probabilities of failure for slope stability are essential for the safety assessment of existing dikes and the design of dike reinforcements. This dissertation focuses on improving failure probability...

Flood risk analysis of embanked river systems: Probabilistic systems approaches for the Rhine and Po rivers

Flood risk analysis focused on small sections or regions of embanked systems ignores the dy-namics of large-scale floods through time and space. Resulting measures are oftentimes inef-ficient due to an over estimation of risk or be-cause they simply transfer risk downstream due to increased localised protection upstream. This present work...

Optimal system safety targets: Incorporating hydrodynamic interactions in an economic cost-benefit analysis for flood defence systems

Historically, people in flood-prone areas world-wide have (to a certain degree) accepted the risk of being flooded because of the benefits that flood-prone areas can provide; examples of such benefits are rich agricultural lands or trade advantages. Acceptance and benefits notwithstanding, people living in flood-prone areas have tried, and will...

Spatial Quality as a Decisive Criterion in Flood Risk Strategies: An integrated approach for flood risk management strategy development, with spatial quality as an ex-ante criterion

The role of the designer in flood risk management strategy development is currently often restricted to the important but limited task of optimally embedding technical interventions, which are themselves derivatives of system level flood risk strategies that are developed at an earlier stage, in their local surroundings. During this thesis...

Advancing Methods For Evaluating Flood Risk Reduction Measures

Flood risk reduction systems are applied worldwide to reduce flood risk and provide protection of flood prone areas. More and more, decision makers use risk-based approach for the design and implementation of interventions in these systems. This dissertation advances existing risk-based approaches for specific interventions within a flood risk...

EMERGO: The Dutch flood risk system since 1986

PART I | A RESEARCH AND DESIGN PROJECT ABOUT FLOOD RISK POLICY SINCE 1986 The period between the Dutch flood disaster of 1953 and the year 2016 can be divided into two eras, separated by the year 1986, when the famous Eastern Scheldt barrier was completed. The perspective of water professionals on flood risk policymaking during the three decades...

Advances in Operational Flood Risk Management in the Netherlands

Operational flood risk management refers to activities that aim to reduce the probability and/or negative consequences of flooding just prior to the expected flood event. An inherent feature of operational flood risk management is that outcomes of decisions taken are uncertain. The main goal of this study was to investigate and develop...