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Factors that cause levee failure include overtopping, erosion, structural failures, and levee saturation. The most frequent (and dangerous) is a levee breach. Here, a part of the levee actually breaks or is eroded away, leaving a large opening for water to flood land otherwise protected by the levee.
Levee overtopping can be caused when flood waters simply exceed the lowest crest of the levee system or if high winds begin to generate significant swells (a storm surge) in the ocean or river water to bring waves crashing over the levee. Overtopping can lead to significant landside erosion of the levee or even be the mechanism for complete ...
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.
“The flood control system is only as good as its weakest link, and presently, we need to take care of the remaining weak link in the levee system which is the risk of erosion,” the U.S. Army ...
Erosion and changes in the form of river banks may be measured by inserting metal rods into the bank and marking the position of the bank surface along the rods at different times. [23] Thermal erosion is the result of melting and weakening permafrost due to moving water. [24] It can occur both along rivers and at the coast.
Vertically upwards seepage is a source of danger on the downstream side of sheet piling and beneath the toe of a dam or levee. Erosion of the soil, known as "soil piping", can lead to failure of the structure and to sinkhole formation. Seeping water removes soil, starting from the exit point of the seepage, and erosion advances upgradient. [8]
Lake bed downcutting is the erosion of cohesive material such as clay or glacial till from a shoreline by wave action. When the sand cover is stripped away and the cohesive layer is exposed, cohesive material is lost to the water column. Unlike sand, cohesive material cannot be replenished by natural events such as bluff erosion. This can ...
The Universal Soil Loss Equation (USLE) is a widely used mathematical model that describes soil erosion processes. [1]Erosion models play critical roles in soil and water resource conservation and nonpoint source pollution assessments, including: sediment load assessment and inventory, conservation planning and design for sediment control, and for the advancement of scientific understanding.