A study of stone arch bridge’s flood reliability through a surrogate model approach

Europe’s historic masonry arch bridges are culturally and economically significant, but their long-term safety must be ensured. Scour effects are the most common cause of collapse, so it is necessary to carry out structural assessments to mitigate the risk and prevent potential failures. In this study, a metamodel-based method was used to...

Fragility Curves for Dikes in the Western Scheldt: Assessing the Applicability of Typology-Based Fragility Curves in assessing Dike Reinforcement Cost for Coastal Dikes

The sea level is rising, possibly by one meter, by the end of this century. The Netherlands is preparing for this scenario through Kennisprogramma Zeespiegelstijging (KP-ZSS). One of the goals is to determine the hydraulic effects of sea level rise (SLR) on the current system. For the flood risk analysis within<br/>KP-ZSS, the current strength...

Empirical fragility and ROC curves for masonry buildings subjected to settlements

In the Netherlands, the potential damage to the building stock due to subsidence phenomena has recently received increased awareness. However, evaluating and predicting damage to buildings in subsiding areas is a complex task that requires associating the vulnerability of exposed structures with the intensity of the subsidence hazard....

Hindcasting of levee failures: Deterministic and probabilistic methods

In the last century, approximately 100,000 people lost their lives during a flood event and over 1.4 billion people were affected. As the population and economic activities grow in flood-prone areas and the frequencies and intensities of flood events increase due to climate change, damage due to flooding is expected to increase. To limit and...

The influence of deviating conditions on levee failure rates

This study introduces a method for assessing the annual failure rate of levees based on information from historical floods, while also considering the return period of these past events. Also, an approach has been developed to quantify the influence of deviating conditions on failure rates. The presence of deviating conditions at failed and...

The missing link in adaptive delta management: Insights on the potential of pumps in reducing flood risk under sea level rise and adaptive social learning to improve decision-making in the Rhine-Meuse estuary

Decision-makers in low-lying coastal zones are confronted with uncertain developments around flood risk.These drivers are surrounded by large uncertainties, which requires delta management to be adaptive. This research offers insights about adaptive delta management for the Rhine-Meuse estuary from three perspectives: a physical, a socio...

The effect of climate change on the residual lifetime of the Haringvliet and Hollands Diep

Risks of structural failure of navigation locks due to drought: A probabilistic analysis

The summer of 2018 was one of the hottest and driest summers since the start of measurements by the Dutch weather service in 1900. This lead to forest fires, problems for farmers and extreme low water levels. The Rhine at Lobith recorded an all-time low water level and also the Ijssel an Meuse rivers recorded extreme low water levels. This...

Resilience Quantification of Large-Scale Water Distribution Networks: A Probabilistic Approach

The capacity of a community to react to and resist during an emergency situation is highly related to the proper functioning of its infrastructure systems. Improving the infrastructure response and recovery capacity through management and adaptation strategies can help increase community resilience. Infrastructural assets are considered outdated...

Assessment of a storm surge barrier: A probabilistic fragility-based framework for the assessment of complex hydraulic structures

This thesis introduces a fragility-based framework in order to perform a custom assessment of the complex Eastern Scheldt storm surge barrier. By applying a conditional approach to loading parameters, the statistical dependency between failure mechanisms and structure elements can be described separately for the strength and loading part of the...

Empirical fragility curves for settlement-affected buildings: Analysis of different intensity parameters for seven hundred masonry buildings in The Netherlands

The analysis and prediction of damage to buildings resting on highly compressible fine-grained “soft soils” containing (organic) clay and peat are key issues to be addressed for a proper management of subsidence-affected urban areas. Among the probabilistic approaches suggested in literature, those oriented to the generation of empirical...

Flood Risk Assessment & Investment Framework: A framework for flood risk reduction strategies in the Hollandsche IJssel

The Hollandsche IJssel is a river between Rotterdam and Gouda and is protected from the main river system in the Netherlands by a storm surge barrier. The Hollandsche IJssel experiences several problems: the storm surge barrier dates from 1958 and has a relatively low closure reliability; three quarters of the dikes have been rejected according...

Application of Fragility Curves in Operational Flood Risk Assessment

The aim of this article is to present and discuss fragility curves that were derived for numerous dikes in the Netherlands within the Dike Data Service Centre (DDSC) initiative. A fragility curve of a dike is a mapping from the set of loads, acting on the dike, to the set of conditional dike failure probabilities. The DDSC is a platform around a...

Seismic Assessment of a Typical Dutch Rijtjeshuis

A critical issue that is raising concern among the scientists and engineers during the last decade in the Netherlands is the occurrence of relatively small earthquakes in the North part of the Netherlands (Groningen, Drenthe and North Holland). These earthquakes that have a non-tectonic origin and are related to the gas-field depletion, have...