Towards emission-free sea dike revetments: Making sustainable design choices by employing probabilistic safety assessment and integrating the environmental cost indicator in the parametric design process of sea dike revetments

Large parts of the Netherlands lay below mean sea level. An extensive network of flood protection measures is in place to prevent flooding. Periodic safety assessment and reinforcement are required to guarantee a resilient system. Currently, in the Netherlands, an extensive sea dike reinforcement program is underway to meet the safety standards...

Reducing hydraulic loads on river dikes by construction of longitudinal mounds of local soil

For the past 2000 years river training works have been performed on the Dutch rivers. These training works have shaped the river system of today. Another result of the river training works, especially over the last two centuries, is a decrease in biodiversity. To protect the biodiversity some floodplains in the Netherlands have been classified...

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...

International Good Practices of Embankment Upgrading with Limited Footprint Increase

This report investigates how embankments in Bangladesh could be upgraded with no or limited footprint increase. Many Bangladesh embankments need to be upgraded to improve flood protection. Traditionally, embankments are upgraded by adding more soil, heightening the crests while simultaneously widening the embankment maintain slope stability.<br/...

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...

Financial feasibility of large-scale adaptation strategies for future SLR in northern Europe: NEED vs dike reinforcement

The effects of climate change are felt all around the world. An increased sea level goes hand in hand with an increased risk of flooding. To combat this, the coastlines must be reinforced to withstand future sea levels. However, repeatedly reinforcing coastlines to keep up with the sea level rise (SLR) could prove extremely costly. An...

Final Report Levee Challenge: Team Hans Brinker

In this assignment we simulate a two meters wide dike stretch which is subjected to overflow. Three failure mechanisms could occur due to overflow: full erosion of the soil of the dike, macro instability of the levee if too much soil is eroded away, leading to insufficient counterweight on the inside of the levee, and surface slip failure due to...

Enhancing reliability of dikes: An approach for assessing benefits of pore pressure monitoring and pressure relief wells in spatially variable soils

The Netherlands is a country prone to flooding. Recent assessments led to the insight that protection levels of many flood defences should be increased. Integrating reinforcement measures is a difficult task as many dikes are situated in densely populated areas. Conventional reinforcement measures include berm construction or the implementation...

Dike stabilisation under uplift conditions using stabilisation columns: A study on the technical potential of stabilisation columns for improving inner slope stability under uplift conditions

The low lying areas in the Netherlands often consist of soft and low permeable soils like clay and peat on top of a sand layer. Due to high water pressures at the interface between the permeable sand layer and the low permeable top layers, the effective stresses decrease, which can cause lifting of the low permeable top layers. As a consequence...

Benefit of starting early: Impact of monitoring and soil investigation during different project phases of dike reinforcement.

To fulfil the new safety standards of the Netherlands against flooding in the future, a great deal of work needs to be performed to prepare the flood defences system, at a quicker pace than is currently achieved. For this reason the HWBP is researching methods which can improve the efficiency of dike reinforcement projects. This thesis was...

Evaluation of sheet pile behavior based on Eemdijk monitoring data

From the 3500 kilometers of primary flood defenses in the Netherlands, a third does not comply with the current standards. As a result, over 700 kilometers will be strengthened in the upcoming years. Traditional strengthening of dikes consists of strengthening with soil and requires space that is often not available. Further strengthening of...

Influence of Monitoring on Investment Planning of Flood Defence Systems

Many flood defences in the Netherlands will have to be reinforced in the coming decades. Many dikes do not fulfill the safety standard due to geotechnical failure modes, largely due to epistemic, reducible uncertainties. . The Value of Information is a measure to indicate beforehand whether an investment towards reducing epistemic uncertainty is...

Spatial integration of dike reinforcements: Development of a method that compares the spatial influence of design alternatives

In the Netherlands, a new assessment method for the required safety level of primary flood defences is introduced in the Water Act. It is estimated that currently roughly 1900 kilometres of flood protection does not meet the safety requirements for the future (Jonkman, Jorissen, Schweckendieck &amp; Van den Bos, 2017). Past flood defence...

The capabilities of the Plaxis Shotcrete material model for designing laterally loaded reinforced concrete structures in the subsurface

A hot topic in the Netherlands is the safety reassessment of dikes. Currently several (river)dikes are being reinforced to withstand a given normative high water level. The environment of those dikes is often characterised by small floodplains and urban areas right next to the dike, wherefore standard geo-technical measures cannot be applied....

Flood risk reduction in the Rhine-Meuse estuary

Large parts of the Netherlands are exposed to the threats of flooding due to the influence of high water coming from the North Sea region, due to high discharge of rivers like the Meuse and Rhine or due to a combination of North Sea water levels and river discharges. In order to cope these threats, strategies are developed in the Delta Program...