This paper presents an overview of a framework to assess the structural integrity and health of earthen levees. The framework is being developed through a project supported by NIST (National Institute of Standards and Technology) and relies on remote sensing and field monitoring data of levees during environmental loading conditions and natural processes of degradation. The monitoring data cons...

Detection of early warning signals for the imminent failure of large and complex engineered structures is a daunting challenge with many open research questions. In this paper we report on novel ways to perform Structural Health Monitoring (SHM) of flood protection systems (levees, earthen dikes and concrete dams) using sensor data. We present a robust data-driven anomaly detection method that ...

Editor's Note: After reviewing the preceding chapters, EPA's Office of Wetland Protection prepared this concluding chapter, which presents their recommendations for protecting coastal wetlands. Recognizing the numerous benefits and values accrued to society from wetlands, there are several options available for minimizing potential future losses of wetlands from predicted sea level rise. These ...

Statistical evaluation of historical dike failure mechanism The failure mechanism of flood protection dikes includes physical (geotechnical, seepage) processes leading to a dike breach. An awareness of the failure mechanism is required directly in dike stability calculations and indirectly for risk calculations. Statistics of historical data indicate among others the distribution and frequency ...

—Lampropeltis getula is a species of conservation concern in several parts of its wide geographic range. I describe habitat use and movement patterns of L. getula holbrooki in an agricultural landscape, a portion of which has been brought out of agriculture and reforested. Both sexes strongly preferred vegetated shrubby levee habitats, and avoided active agricultural fields. There was no eviden...

This paper analyzes the use of a synthetic aperture radar (SAR) imagery to support levee condition assessment by detecting potential slide areas in an efficient and cost-effective manner. Levees are prone to a failure in the form of internal erosion within the earthen structure and landslides (also called slough or slump slides). If not repaired, slough slides may lead to levee failures. In thi...

There have been many cases of earth embankment failures, for example, Hurricane Katrina in 2005, where breaching occurred and devastated the surrounding population. Levee failures are preventable by a better understanding of the ways in which these embankments are designed and fail. The objective of this research is to protect levees against future failures. This paper studies various overtoppi...

This paper studies rill and gully initiation and propagation on levees, dams, and general earth embankments. It specifically studies where these erosion features occur, and how long a particular embankment can sustain overtopping before breaching and catastrophic failure. This contrasts to previous levee erosion analysis, which has primarily concerned the final effects of erosion, such as soil ...