Briefing: Lessons learned from failures of flood defences

Failure of flood defences during extreme events can lead to enormous damage and loss of life. This paper presents lessons learned from investigations of flood events over recent years, including the 2005 flooding in New Orleans, USA, caused by hurricane Katrina. Based on these findings, new developments in the field of research, design and...

The long-term response of rivers to engineering works and climate change

Rivers respond to changes in their geometry or their controls in various ways and at a wide range of space and time scales. The response consists of changes in properties such as cross-sectional shape and area, slope, planform pattern, bed roughness and bed sediment composition. Usually, attention for the morphological impact of engineering...