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Probabilistic failure analysis of riprap as riverbank protection under flood uncertainties

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Abstract

Existing riverbank riprap could face the risk of failure if the flood regime changes in future. Additionally, changed sediment transport in rivers, as a possible result of climate change, impacts the failure risk of flood protection measures. Evaluation of this potential failure is the primary issue of riprap stability and safety assessment. The consequences of the bank failure are probably uncontrolled erosion and flooding with disastrous consequences in residential areas or damage to infrastructures. Thus, a probabilistic analysis of riprap failure considering different mechanisms due to the flood and sediment transport uncertainties is required to assess embankment stability. In this article, the concept of a probabilistic assessment model based on Monte Carlo simulation method, moment analysis methods, and Rosenblueth point estimation method are presented to define the failure risk of riprap as the river bank protection. The probability of failure in different modes, namely direct block erosion, toe scouring and overtopping, has been defined by taking into account the river bed level variation based on bedload transport described with a probabilistic function of the peak discharge. The result of three models comparison revealed a good agreement (the average deviation of less than 2%) in estimation of riprap failure probability. This model is a strategical tool to search the critical river reaches and helps to evaluate the risk maps. So that, the model could cover the engineering aspect of environmental stability in the rivers with riprap as the bank protections.

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Acknowledgements

The research project is financed by the Swiss Federal Office for the Environment (FOEN) under Contract No. A2111.0239/10-0019.PJ/J372-1192.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Laboratory of Hydraulic Constructions (LCH), École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL), 1015, Lausanne, Switzerland

    Mona Jafarnejad, Michael Pfister & Anton J. Schleiss

  2. Structural Maintenance and Safety Laboratory (MCS), École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL), Lausanne, Switzerland

    Eugen Brühwiler

  3. Civil Engineering Department, Haute Ecole d’Ingénierie et d’Architecture (HEIA-FR, HES-SO), 1705, Fribourg, Switzerland

    Michael Pfister

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  1. Mona Jafarnejad
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  2. Michael Pfister
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  3. Eugen Brühwiler
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  4. Anton J. Schleiss
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Correspondence to Mona Jafarnejad.

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Jafarnejad, M., Pfister, M., Brühwiler, E. et al. Probabilistic failure analysis of riprap as riverbank protection under flood uncertainties. Stoch Environ Res Risk Assess 31, 1839–1851 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00477-016-1368-6

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