INTEGRATING LEVEE PERFORMANCE ASSESSMENTS INTO COMPLEX FLOOD PROTECTION SYSTEMS

Great strides have been made in the past few years in terms of improving the characterization of levee performance and engineering assessments. The automation of several key steps in the evaluation of levees will continue to lead to improved risk assessments, targeted remediation efforts, and more effective investment by stakeholders. However, to realize the full value of these efforts, improvements in performance assessment also need to be linked to flood protection systems. The ability to identify very specific high-risk-of-failure locations on a levee can be of tremendous value to emergency management during episodic flooding hazards. Both nationally and internationally, efforts are being made to integrate the modeling of hazards of episodic events, such as hurricanes and seasonal flooding, with levee performance metrics in a “dashboard” environment. The dashboard will provide managers and operators of flood defense systems a powerful tool not only in their remediation planning but also in their efforts to deal with episodic flood events. Geotechnical integrity is essential for levee safety assessments. Several pilot programs have been carried out in both the USA and the Netherlands to improve the geotechnical modeling of levee strength. New insights are integrated in Fugro’s Rapid Engineering Assessment of Levees ® (REAL ® ). REAL ® incorporates levee geotechnical, geospatial, and geological characteristics in its assessment and allows for systematic, consistent, and repeatable evaluation at very closely spaced cross-section intervals and various water levels. This assessment and evaluation process is typically 100 times faster than conventional work flows. This paper will elaborate on some recent developments in 3-D and real-time geotechnical and geospatial levee engineering assessments.