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The side of a levee in Sacramento, California. A levee (/ ˈ l ɛ v i / or / ˈ l ɛ v eɪ /), [a] [1] dike (American English), dyke (British English; see spelling differences), embankment, floodbank, or stop bank is an elevated ridge, natural or artificial, alongside the banks of a river, often intended to protect against flooding of the area adjoining the river.
A levee failure during the Great Mississippi Flood of 1927. A breach in a dike during the North Sea flood of 1953. A levee breach or levee failure (also known as dyke breach or dyke failure) is a situation where a levee (or dyke) fails or is intentionally breached, causing the previously contained water to flood the land behind the levee.
Internal erosion is the formation of voids within a soil caused by the removal of material by seepage. [1] It is the second most common cause of failure in levees and one of the leading causes of failures in earth dams, [2] responsible for about half of embankment dam failures.
Erosion of mountains massifs can create a pattern of equally high summits called summit accordance. [73] It has been argued that extension during post-orogenic collapse is a more effective mechanism of lowering the height of orogenic mountains than erosion. [74] Examples of heavily eroded mountain ranges include the Timanides of
Crevasse splay on the Columbia River ().1ː Levees; 2ː active channel; 3ː floodplain; 4ː crevasse splay deposits; 5ː crevasse splay extent. A crevasse splay is a sedimentary fluvial deposit which forms when a stream breaks its natural or artificial levees and deposits sediment on a floodplain.
The varying rates of erosion are associated with the composition of the adjacent rocks in the different valley locations. The tributary valleys are eroded and deepened by glaciers or erosion at a slower rate than that of the main valley floor; thus the difference in the two valleys' depth increases over time.
Breaching levees to reconnect streams to their floodplains can be an effective form of restoration as well. On the Cosumnes River in central California, for example, the return of seasonal flooding to the floodplain as a result of levee breaching was found to result in the reestablishment of primarily native riparian plant communities. [22]
River erosion in the UK. River bank failure can be caused when the gravitational forces acting on a bank exceed the forces which hold the sediment together. Failure depends on sediment type, layering, and moisture content. [1] All river banks experience erosion, but failure is dependent on the location and the rate at which erosion is occurring ...