A probabilistic approach to levee reliability based on sliding, backward erosion and overflowing mechanisms: Application to an inspired Canadian case study

This research aims to provide global failure probabilities tailored for flood risk assessment purposes on regional to national scales. It focuses on fluvial earthen levees, which are a common occurrence in cities. The aggregation of failure probabilities provides a more understandable levee failure map for flood management organizations. Improving protection against fluvial floods requires a better estimation of levee failure.

The results showed for our study case that, even though the transient model is a closer representation of reality, the levee saturation parameter has little impact on hydraulic gradient values, by extension, on sliding and backward erosion failure probabilities. The Monte-Carlo aggregated fragility curve is more realistic than the envelop curve of the failure mechanisms for an equivalent computation time.