Flood risk assessment and management often requires the prediction of potential breaching of a flood defence embankment or dam in order to either assess potential impacts or provide information to assist emergency planning, evacuation, repair strategies and improve alternative future design strategies. There are many different aspects of the overall breaching process, which are more, or less, relevant to the wide range of potential end users of such information. Consequently, the prediction of breach growth is an area where research has been undertaken for many decades in an attempt to provide more reliable models and predictions. However, despite many initiatives providing observations and recommendations as to processes observed and how research might progress, more detailed literature searches will often uncover conclusions and observations noted a decade or two or three earlier that are similar to those being made today. In particular, observations relating to material type, state (such as water content and compaction) and properties are relevant here. This prompts the obvious question as to why our ability to predict breach initiation and growth has not progressed further over this period. Why are so many studies identifying similar issues and, in effect, 'reinventing the wheel'? With a programme of research into breach initiation and growth under the EC FLOODsite Project and continued pressure to improve tools and techniques following events such as those seen at New Orleans in August 2005, this paper considers this question of apparent slow progress and offers some suggestions as to why this may have occurred and what direction might prove more effective in the future.
Predicting how a flood defence structure, such as a river or coastal embankment, behaves under varying load conditions is an essential part of undertaking a flood risk assessment. This understanding directly influences the prediction of rate and volume of any flood water that may cross over or through the flood defence structure and impact on the protected area behind. A range of research and model development has been undertaken through Task 6 of the FLOODsite project, building upon earlier work under the IMPACT project and linking with ongoing international initiatives such as the Dam Safety Interest Group breach modelling project. This paper outlines the innovative research undertaken by three organisations within FLOODsite investigating wave induced breach initiation, the influence of soil state and cracking on initiation and improved simulation of the breach initiation and growth stages to support flood risk analyses.
The future management of flood risk will not come from a single technical solution or policy but from a range of responses which are tuned to the specific circumstances at a local or regional scale, taking account of national governance structures and public attitudes towards flood risks. This diversity of approach is recognised by the embodiment of the subsidiarity principle in the European Directive on the assessment and management of flood risks. This paper covers some of the main areas of innovation achieved within the European funded research project FLOODsite. These innovations will facilitate the implementation of the European Directive actions of flood risk assessments, risk mapping and the preparation of flood risk management plans. FLOODsite does not propose a single integrated methodology for flood risk management; rather it provides a set of linked methods which support integrated flood risk management. We also compare FLOODsite against the ambitions set for the EC Sixth Framework Programme Integrated Projects.Chp_049.indd 433 9/6/2008 7:39:02 PM
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