Figure 2 - uploaded by Owen Tarrant
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Cross section of an earthen embankment showing the relevant showing typical arrange of elements (after Morris et al., 2009).
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Monitoring flood defence condition is a critical part of the effective management of flood defence infrastructure. In this paper,the use of remotely sensed data to identify indicators of weakness, deterioration and damage is explored. Such indicators are often tell-tale signs of processes that can lead to flood defence failure and breaching. Source...
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... terms used to describe the general arrangement of a flood defence embankment in the UK context are introduced diagrammatically in Figure 2. Defects or the presence of irregu- larities in the embankment can lead to weaknesses, or indicate the gradual process of wear and tear (deterioration) and/or fun- damental damage such as that caused by a flood event. ...
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Flooding occurs frequently in many countries including Malaysia. Floods in Malaysia are usually due to heavy and prolonged rainfall, uncontrolled development, and drainage systems that are not being monitored. Road damage due to flooding event can cause huge expenditures for the post-flooding rehabilitation and maintenance. The required maintenance...
Citations
... In various regions worldwide and countries like the Netherlands and Belgium, they protect millions of people against floods, and therefore any damage to them could pose a serious safety risk. Numerous instances of levee failures worldwide have been linked, partly or fully, to the presence of animal burrows (Bayoumi & Meguid, 2011;Taccari, 2015;Tarrant et al., 2018;. One of the most studied failure mechanisms of levee sections that contain burrows is 'internal erosion' or 'piping' (Orlandini et al., 2015;Palladino et al., 2020;Saghaee et al., 2016). ...
This short communication presents a practical tool for assessing the subsurface connectivity of animal burrows, with emphasis on its potential for early detection and evaluation of animal-induced damages in levees that can compromise the structure during high water emergencies. Drawing inspiration from fundamental biology research and plumbing leak testing, the technique involves injection of coloured smoke into burrows using smoke bombs. A leaf blower then propels the smoke through the burrow network, enabling the identification of openings and providing insights into subsurface connections. Systematically tested in various environments and applied to investigate burrow networks of diverse animal species, including crabs, voles, and moles, the results underscore the efficacy of the smoke test as a rapid, non-destructive, and cost-effective approach for detecting interconnected burrow networks.
... How society estimates or considers the risk of flooding is related with their preparedness, awareness and worry, to reduce negative effects of flood (Huang and Lubell 2022;Sairam et al. 2019). Flood defense structures are also needed to be monitored and controlled (Tarrant et al. 2018). Besides, in order to minimize flooding consequences, emergency response needs to be efficient (Longenecker et al. 2018). ...
Natural disasters, especially those related to water—like storms and floods—have increased over the last decades both in number and intensity. Under the current Climate Change framework, several reports predict an increase in the intensity and duration of these extreme climatic events, where the Mediterranean area would be one of the most affected. This paper develops a decision support system based on Bayesian inference able to predict a flood alert in Andalusian Mediterranean catchments. The key point is that, using simple weather forecasts and live measurements of river level, we can get a flood-alert several hours before it happens. A set of models based on Bayesian networks was learnt for each of the catchments included in the study area, and joined together into a more complex model based on a rule system. This final meta-model was validated using data from both non-extreme and extreme storm events. Results show that the methodology proposed provides an accurate forecast of the flood situation of the greatest catchment areas of Andalusia.
... According to the literature, it was observed that numerous technological approaches such as IoT [29,37,38,[52][53][54][55], crowdsourcing [36,38,74], satellites [31,44,64,71,80,98], and numerical modelling [35,58,59,85] are used to extract intelligence related to flooding at various stages, such as rainfall, river flow propagation, and inundation as indicated in Figure 4. The intelligence extracted from these technologies includes rainfall, river level (measured, observed, and forecasted), both inundation depth and extent (measured, observed, and forecasted), flood frequency, return period, intensity, flood arrival time, and soil moisture. ...
Deaths and property damage from floods have increased drastically in the past two decades due to various reasons such as increased populations, unplanned developments, and climate change. Such losses from floods can be reduced by issuing timely early warnings and through effective response mechanisms based on situational intelligence during emerging flood situations. This paper presents the outcome of a literature review that was conducted to identify the types and sources of the intelligence required for flood warning and response processes as well as the technology solutions that can be used for offering such intelligence. Twenty-seven different types of intelligence are presented together with the technologies that can be used to extract such intelligence. Furthermore, a conceptual architecture that illustrates how relevant technology solutions can be used to extract intelligence at various stages of a flood cycle for decision-making in issuing early warnings and planning responses is presented.
... According to the literature, it was observed that numerous technological approaches such as IoT [16,24,25,[38][39][40][41], crowdsourcing [23,25,60], satellites [18,30,50,57,66,85] and numerical modelling [22,44,45,71] are used to extract intelligence in relation to flooding at various stages, such as rainfall, river flow propagation, and inundation as in- According to the literature, it was observed that numerous technological approaches such as IoT [16,24,25,[38][39][40][41], crowdsourcing [23,25,60], satellites [18,30,50,57,66,85] and numerical modelling [22,44,45,71] are used to extract intelligence in relation to flooding at various stages, such as rainfall, river flow propagation, and inundation as indicated in . ...
... According to the literature, it was observed that numerous technological approaches such as IoT [16,24,25,[38][39][40][41], crowdsourcing [23,25,60], satellites [18,30,50,57,66,85] and numerical modelling [22,44,45,71] are used to extract intelligence in relation to flooding at various stages, such as rainfall, river flow propagation, and inundation as in- According to the literature, it was observed that numerous technological approaches such as IoT [16,24,25,[38][39][40][41], crowdsourcing [23,25,60], satellites [18,30,50,57,66,85] and numerical modelling [22,44,45,71] are used to extract intelligence in relation to flooding at various stages, such as rainfall, river flow propagation, and inundation as indicated in . ...
Deaths and property damage from the flood have increased drastically in the past two decades due to various reasons such as increased population, unplanned development and climate change. Losses from floods can be reduced by having accurate intelligence of an emerging flood situation in order to make timely decisions for issuing early warnings and responding efficiently. This paper presents a thorough analysis of the types and sources of intelligence required for flood warning and response processes and technology solutions that can be used for capturing such intelligence. A structured review, covering a more comprehensive range of published literature on Flood Early Warning and Response Systems (FEWRS), was conducted to identify the necessary intelligence and the technology that can be used to capture intelligence required for various phases of a flood hazard as it develops. Twenty-seven different types of key intelligence required in the flood cycle were identified. A conceptual architecture was identified that illustrates how relevant technology solutions can be used to extract intelligence at various stages of a flood event for decision making for early warnings and response.
... How society estimates or considers the risk of flooding is related with preparedness, awareness and worry, which means people would take appropriate actions to reduce negative effects of flood 35,36 . Flood defense structures are also needed to be monitored and controlled 37 . Besides, in order to minimize flooding consequences, emergency response needs to be efficient 38 . ...
Natural disasters, especially those related with water-like storms and floods-have been increased over the last decades both in number and intensity. According to Insurance Federation data, storms and floods comprise more than 75% of economic losses with respect to the total of natural disasters. Firstly, this paper aims to analyze how the flood risk analysis has been studied and evaluated through a literature review. It shows an evolution from a technical vision (dams, dikes an retention systems constructions) to a more complex risk management framework. Despite their importance, risk studies in water area hardly achieves the 3% of the total published papers. Under the current Climate Change framework, several reports predict an increase of these extreme events at a global scale. However, regional studies often find trends that do not match with the global behavior. So, a second goal of the paper is to study flood events evolution on both Spain and Andalusian Mediterranean region using National and regional dataset. The analysis shows a positive tendency in the number of annual events.
... In addition, revetments are damaged by complex factors, such as land subsidence, ground collapse, erosion, vegetation presence, riverbed degradation, and human interference [2,3]. Therefore, monitoring the condition of revetments is an essential task in the management of flood defense infrastructure and important in providing evidence for maintenance or improvements [4]. ...
... At present, some studies have been done to conduct an assessment of the condition of revetments by the use of remotely sensed data in countries such as England [4] and France [5], but these methods are not applicable to urban revetment monitoring, and the assessment of the condition of revetments is visually inspected by the Municipal Engineering Management Agency in China. However, field visual inspection is time-consuming and technically complex in obtaining complete information on revetments. ...
... Additionally, the assessment of the subsurface condition of revetments is difficult because visual inspection is preferred in investigating important signs, such as surface collapse. Notably, early damage recognition is highly beneficial in enabling maintenance and improvements in advance before further deterioration occurs [4]. ...
The all-embracing inspection of geometry structures of revetments along urban rivers using the conventional field visual inspection is technically complex and time-consuming. In this study, an approach using dense point clouds derived from low-cost unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) photogrammetry is proposed to automatically and efficiently recognize the signatures of revetment damage. To quickly and accurately recover the finely detailed surface of a revetment, an object space-based dense matching approach, that is, region growing coupled with semi-global matching, is exploited to generate pixel-by-pixel dense point clouds for characterizing the signatures of revetment damage. Then, damage recognition is conducted using a proposed operator, that is, a self-adaptive and multiscale gradient operator, which is designed to extract the damaged regions with different sizes in the slope intensity image of the revetment. A revetment with slope protection along urban rivers is selected to evaluate the performance of damage recognition. Results indicate that the proposed approach can be considered an effective alternative to field visual inspection for revetment damage recognition along urban rivers because our method not only recovers the finely detailed surface of the revetment but also remarkably improves the accuracy of revetment damage recognition.
... The flooding from these breaches did not impact any properties that had not already been affected by the overflow of adjacent defence lengths. The breaches did, however cause significant disruption, particularly during the evacuation of people from near-by villages and to the farmland which was flooded (Tarrant et al., 2017) A subsequent technical analysis of defence performance (Environment Agency, 2016) determined that many of the embankment failures could be attributed to local irregularities/weaknesses such as sudden changes in flood defence geometry, historical channel crossings, and local low spots. The report recommended that flood defence managers should focus on identifying and resolving these local irregularities/weaknesses. ...
... The paper then builds on from the research reported by Tarrant et al. (2017). In this earlier paper, the results from a series of investigatory workshops led by the Environment Agency were presented. ...
... Issues with visual inspection monitoring are well documented (e.g., Long and Simm, 2006;Tarrant et al., 2017;Wallis, et al., 2012). Long et al. (2006) state that perhaps, the single most significant limitation is that only the surface of the flood defence can be inspected. ...
... During these inspections, the integrity of the structures is assessed using visual inspection parameters, in order to check the presence of any damage, cracks, seepage, animal burrows, or irregular vegetation on the levees 9 . Thus, visual inspection by expert's judgement is not effective in detecting small (mm-to cm-level) and gradual changes in the structural behaviour of the levee 10 , which may be indicative of an imminent failure. Common remote sensing (e.g. ...
Levees are critical in providing protection against catastrophic flood events, and thus require continuous monitoring. Current levee inspection methods rely on limited information obtained by visual inspection, resulting in infrequent, localized, mostly qualitative and subjective assessments. This hampers the timely detection of problematic locations and the assessment of levee safety in general. Satellite radar interferometry yields weekly observations of levee conditions with high precision which complement current inspection methods. Here we show that levees are susceptible to short-term swelling and shrinkage associated with meteorological conditions, and assess how deformations can be related to the geohydrological properties and the safety of the levee. Our findings allow to understand the sub-seasonal behaviour of the levee in greater detail and to predict swelling and shrinkage due to variation of the loading conditions. This will improve the detection of anomalous levee responses which contributes to the development of reliable early warning methods using continuous deformation monitoring.
... For many failure mechanisms (Figure 1), deformation is an important early indicator for imminent failures (Dentz et al., 2006;Özer, van Damme, Schweckendiek, & Jonkman, 2016). Early detection of these indications would facilitate on-time levee assessment and maintenance before a failure occurs (Tarrant, Hambidge, Hollingsworth, Normandale, & Burdett, 2017). Therefore, improved methods to detect small deformations of levees at an early stage are likely to give a significant contribution to levee safety. ...
Levees are critical systems in safeguarding an area against catastrophic flooding events with potential fatalities and economic losses. Current monitoring methods of levees highly rely on expert judgment, resulting in infrequent and subjective assessments of their status. Satellite radar imaging, in particular using interferometry (InSAR) holds a large potential to monitor the condition of levees with millimetre level precision, anywhere on the planet. However, for levee management, the usability of the technique requires significant radar expert knowledge. Here we provide a comprehensive overview of the state of the art in using time‐series InSAR for systematic levee deformation monitoring. We explore its use to complement existing approaches for assessing levee deformation and failure investigations in a fast, systematic and cost‐effective way. The applicability of imaging radar satellites is discussed, supported by case studies on levee monitoring in the Netherlands. We elaborate on the technical aspects with respect to levee monitoring using SAR technology, such as estimating deformation in different directions, satellite characteristics, precision, and reliability. We conclude that InSAR is becoming an operational deformation monitoring system, which allows for the detection, tracking and analysis of irregularities on levee sections with increased efficiency and quality, thus contributing to improved risk management.
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