Global Sensitivity Analysis of Groundwater Related Dike Stability under Extreme Loading Conditions
With up to 15% of the world’s population being protected by dikes from flooding, climate-change-induced river levels may dramatically increase the flood risk of these societies. Reliable assessments of dike stability will become increasingly important, but groundwater flow through dikes is often ove...
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MDPI AG
2021-11-01
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Series: | Water |
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Online Access: | https://www.mdpi.com/2073-4441/13/21/3041 |
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author | Teun van Woerkom Rens van Beek Hans Middelkoop Marc F. P. Bierkens |
author_facet | Teun van Woerkom Rens van Beek Hans Middelkoop Marc F. P. Bierkens |
author_sort | Teun van Woerkom |
collection | DOAJ |
description | With up to 15% of the world’s population being protected by dikes from flooding, climate-change-induced river levels may dramatically increase the flood risk of these societies. Reliable assessments of dike stability will become increasingly important, but groundwater flow through dikes is often oversimplified due to limited understanding of the important process parameters. To improve the understanding of these parameters, we performed a global sensitivity analysis on a comprehensive hydro-stability model. The sensitivity analysis encompassed fifteen parameters related to geometry, drainage conditions and material properties. The following three sensitivity settings were selected to characterize model behavior: parameter prioritization, trend identification and interaction qualification. The first two showed that dike stability is mostly dependent on the dike slope, followed by the type of subsurface material. Interaction quantification indicated a very prominent interaction between the dike and subsurface material, as it influences both groundwater conditions and dike stability directly. Despite our relatively simple model setup, a database containing the results of the extensive Monte Carlo analysis succeeded in finding most of the unsafe sections identified by the official inspection results. This supports the applicability of our results and demonstrates that both geometry and subsurface parameters affect the groundwater conditions and dike stability. |
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id | doaj.art-1f559dfce50b4ca6ab76b3f3a4bd8baa |
institution | Directory Open Access Journal |
issn | 2073-4441 |
language | English |
last_indexed | 2024-03-10T05:48:47Z |
publishDate | 2021-11-01 |
publisher | MDPI AG |
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series | Water |
spelling | doaj.art-1f559dfce50b4ca6ab76b3f3a4bd8baa2023-11-22T21:54:25ZengMDPI AGWater2073-44412021-11-011321304110.3390/w13213041Global Sensitivity Analysis of Groundwater Related Dike Stability under Extreme Loading ConditionsTeun van Woerkom0Rens van Beek1Hans Middelkoop2Marc F. P. Bierkens3Department of Physical Geography, Faculty of Geosciences, University of Utrecht, P.O. Box 80115, 3508 TC Utrecht, The NetherlandsDepartment of Physical Geography, Faculty of Geosciences, University of Utrecht, P.O. Box 80115, 3508 TC Utrecht, The NetherlandsDepartment of Physical Geography, Faculty of Geosciences, University of Utrecht, P.O. Box 80115, 3508 TC Utrecht, The NetherlandsDepartment of Physical Geography, Faculty of Geosciences, University of Utrecht, P.O. Box 80115, 3508 TC Utrecht, The NetherlandsWith up to 15% of the world’s population being protected by dikes from flooding, climate-change-induced river levels may dramatically increase the flood risk of these societies. Reliable assessments of dike stability will become increasingly important, but groundwater flow through dikes is often oversimplified due to limited understanding of the important process parameters. To improve the understanding of these parameters, we performed a global sensitivity analysis on a comprehensive hydro-stability model. The sensitivity analysis encompassed fifteen parameters related to geometry, drainage conditions and material properties. The following three sensitivity settings were selected to characterize model behavior: parameter prioritization, trend identification and interaction qualification. The first two showed that dike stability is mostly dependent on the dike slope, followed by the type of subsurface material. Interaction quantification indicated a very prominent interaction between the dike and subsurface material, as it influences both groundwater conditions and dike stability directly. Despite our relatively simple model setup, a database containing the results of the extensive Monte Carlo analysis succeeded in finding most of the unsafe sections identified by the official inspection results. This supports the applicability of our results and demonstrates that both geometry and subsurface parameters affect the groundwater conditions and dike stability.https://www.mdpi.com/2073-4441/13/21/3041groundwaterflood defensessensitivity analysisdike stabilityflood safety |
spellingShingle | Teun van Woerkom Rens van Beek Hans Middelkoop Marc F. P. Bierkens Global Sensitivity Analysis of Groundwater Related Dike Stability under Extreme Loading Conditions Water groundwater flood defenses sensitivity analysis dike stability flood safety |
title | Global Sensitivity Analysis of Groundwater Related Dike Stability under Extreme Loading Conditions |
title_full | Global Sensitivity Analysis of Groundwater Related Dike Stability under Extreme Loading Conditions |
title_fullStr | Global Sensitivity Analysis of Groundwater Related Dike Stability under Extreme Loading Conditions |
title_full_unstemmed | Global Sensitivity Analysis of Groundwater Related Dike Stability under Extreme Loading Conditions |
title_short | Global Sensitivity Analysis of Groundwater Related Dike Stability under Extreme Loading Conditions |
title_sort | global sensitivity analysis of groundwater related dike stability under extreme loading conditions |
topic | groundwater flood defenses sensitivity analysis dike stability flood safety |
url | https://www.mdpi.com/2073-4441/13/21/3041 |
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