Safety of Italian dams in the face of flood hazard

Most rivers in Italy are segmented by dams that need rehabilitation because of (1) safety requirements by increasingly risk-averse societies, (2) changes in the downstream river and riparian system after dams building, (3) poor initial design at the time of completion and (4) modified priorities of watershed management. Safe design of flood spillways is a major concern, and requires to cope with low frequency flood hazard. One must estimate flood figures with high return periods (R ⩾ 1000–10,000 years) but statistical methods involve large uncertainties because of the short length of the available records. This paper investigates the return period of the design flood of existing spillways R_S of large dams in Italy. We used re-normalized flood frequency approach and regionalization using the Generalized Extreme Value distribution. The estimation of the site specific index flood is carried out by simple scaling with basin area at the regional level. The result show that 55% (245) of the 448 examined dams are equipped by spillway with R_S > 10,000; and 71% (315) of the dams have R_S > 1000. Conversely, 29% (130) of the dams display R_S < 1000 years, lower than acceptable hazard. The spillway of 14% (62) of the dams has R_S < 100 years, indicating potential exceedance of spillways capacity. Reservoir routing may dampen the outflow hydrograph, but one should carefully account for the need of achieving accurate dam safety assessment of these dams based on site specific investigations, also accounting for global change forcing.     

A technique for the analysis of the response of dams to earthquakes

A finite element technique is developed for two-dimensional problems of dynamics of dam–water–foundation systems taking into account all interactions rigorously. Water–foundation interaction, which previous developments have only simulated, is considered by imposing proper conditions at the fluid–solid interface. Furthermore, the technique permits treatment of layered foundations. An application to a concrete gravity dam–water–foundation system is presented and discussed.     

A new approach for computing a flood vulnerability index using cluster analysis

A Flood Vulnerability Index (FloodVI) was developed using Principal Component Analysis (PCA) and a new aggregation method based on Cluster Analysis (CA). PCA simplifies a large number of variables into a few uncorrelated factors representing the social, economic, physical and environmental dimensions of vulnerability. CA groups areas that have the same characteristics in terms of vulnerability into vulnerability classes. The grouping of the areas determines their classification contrary to other aggregation methods in which the areas' classification determines their grouping. While other aggregation methods distribute the areas into classes, in an artificial manner, by imposing a certain probability for an area to belong to a certain class, as determined by the assumption that the aggregation measure used is normally distributed, CA does not constrain the distribution of the areas by the classes.FloodVI was designed at the neighbourhood level and was applied to the Portuguese municipality of Vila Nova de Gaia where several flood events have taken place in the recent past. The FloodVI sensitivity was assessed using three different aggregation methods: the sum of component scores, the first component score and the weighted sum of component scores.The results highlight the sensitivity of the FloodVI to different aggregation methods. Both sum of component scores and weighted sum of component scores have shown similar results. The first component score aggregation method classifies almost all areas as having medium vulnerability and finally the results obtained using the CA show a distinct differentiation of the vulnerability where hot spots can be clearly identified.The information provided by records of previous flood events corroborate the results obtained with CA, because the inundated areas with greater damages are those that are identified as high and very high vulnerability areas by CA. This supports the fact that CA provides a reliable FloodVI.     

On seasonal and semi-annual approach for flood frequency analysis

As a supplementary method to the conventional flood frequency analysis based on annual peak flows, we propose an approach in this paper to infer the flood frequency distribution on quarterly and semi-annual time scale, which are then converted to annual time scale to obtain the floods corresponding to return periods in unit of year. Two criteria for test of data independence, namely, minimum 7 and 15-day interval between two consecutive peak flows, are tested. The proposed approach was applied to Des Moines River at Fort Dodge, Iowa, USA using its 62 years of observation daily flows. The results show that the estimated floods for given return periods from quarter-annual data series are in general higher than the corresponding estimated floods from semi-annual data series, which is further larger than estimated floods from annual peak flows. The floods estimated from semi-annual data series agree well with the results of previous US Geological Survey study.     

Hydrological and flood hazard assessment using a coupled modelling approach for a mountainous catchment in Portugal

Floods may lead to destruction of property, to damage to the environment and ultimately to loss of lives. Although it is not possible to avoid them, they are enhanced by human activities that increase the probability of occurrence of these natural events. Preliminary flood risk assessment and determination of areas of potential significant flood risk is mandatory according to the European Floods Directive (2007). In order to meet the established legislation, a methodology was developed that couples two modelling approaches: the Hydrological Simulation Program—FORTRAN (HSPF) and IBER. A target watershed, with complex orography and known to be vulnerable to flood hazards, is selected: the Vez River (northern Portugal). The performance of the HSPF model, driven by a climate gridded dataset, was assessed, followed by the reconstruction of the flow rate in the catchment for the period from 1950 to 2015. The results hint at an agreement between simulated and observed daily flow rates, with high coefficient of determination value and of the Nash–Sutcliffe coefficient of efficiency (> 0.7 daily timescale). A satisfactory performance was also found in reproducing flood peak events. An average deviation of 10% was found between observed and simulated flood peaks. The output of HSPF was subsequently used to drive IBER, thus determining flood hazard areas for a 10, 50 and 100-year return periods. The methodology presented here provides basic tools for decision-makers to evaluate hydrologic responses to climate data, namely the determination of flood hazard maps, but also risk assessment, water management, environmental protection and sustainability.     

The Ischia island flash flood of November 2009 (Italy): Phenomenon analysis and flood hazard

The island of Ischia is particularly susceptible to landslides and flash floods due to its particular geological and geomorphological context. Urbanization in recent decades coupled with the development of tourism has increased the risk. After the November 10, 2009 event occurring in the northern sector of the island (the town of Casamicciola), a detailed geo-morphological survey was conducted to ascertain the evolution of the phenomenon. In the watersheds upstream of Casamicciola, many landslides were mapped and the volume of material involved during detachment and sliding was estimated. In the lower course area, near the town and towards the sea, flow pathways were reconstructed with the aid of extensive video footage taken during the event. Rainfall data were also analyzed and a relationship was established between the hourly rainfall rate and the flash flood. The phenomenon was found to be quite complex, with many upstream landslides stopping before reaching the urban area. In the lower course the alluvial event occurred as a flood with a very small sediment discharge, which left a very thin layer of sediment. Reconstruction of the flash flood phenomenon suggested possible action for future risk mitigation, early warning and civil protection plans.     

A data based mechanistic approach to nonlinear flood routing and adaptive flood level forecasting

Operational flood forecasting requires accurate forecasts with a suitable lead time, in order to be able to issue appropriate warnings and take appropriate emergency actions. Recent improvements in both flood plain characterization and computational capabilities have made the use of distributed flood inundation models more common. However, problems remain with the application of such models. There are still uncertainties associated with the identifiability of parameters; with the computational burden of calculating distributed estimates of predictive uncertainty; and with the adaptive use of such models for operational, real-time flood inundation forecasting. Moreover, the application of distributed models is complex, costly and requires high degrees of skill. This paper presents an alternative to distributed inundation models for real-time flood forecasting that provides fast and accurate, medium to short-term forecasts. The Data Based Mechanistic (DBM) methodology exploits a State Dependent Parameter (SDP) modelling approach to derive a nonlinear dependence between the water levels measured at gauging stations along the river. The transformation of water levels depends on the relative geometry of the channel cross-sections, without the need to apply rating curve transformations to the discharge. The relationship obtained is used to transform water levels as an input to a linear, on-line, real-time and adaptive stochastic DBM model. The approach provides an estimate of the prediction uncertainties, including allowing for heterescadasticity of the multi-step-ahead forecasting errors. The approach is illustrated using an 80 km reach of the River Severn, in the UK.     

On seasonal approach to flood frequency modelling. Part II: flood frequency analysis of Polish rivers

The annual peak flow series of Polish rivers are mixtures of summer and winter flows. As Part II of a sequence of two papers, practical aspects of applicability of seasonal approach to flood frequency analysis (FFA) of Polish rivers are discussed. Taking A Two‐Component Extreme Value (TCEV1) model as an example it was shown in the first part that regardless of estimation method, the seasonal approach can give profit in terms of upper quantile estimation accuracy that rises with the return period of the quantile and is the greatest for no seasonal variation. In this part, an assessment of annual maxima (AM) versus seasonal maxima (SM) approach to FFA was carried out with respect to seasonal and annual peak flow series of 38 Polish gauging stations. First, the assumption of mutual independence of the seasonal maxima has been tested. The smoothness of SM and AM empirical probability distribution functions was analysed and compared. The TCEV1 model with seasonally estimated parameters was found to be not appropriate for most Polish data as it considerably underrates the skewness of AM distributions and upper quantile values as well. Consequently, the discrepancies between the SM and AM estimates of TCEV1 are observed. Taking SM and TCEV1 distribution, the dominating season in AM series was confronted with predominant season for extreme floods. The key argument for presumptive superiority of SM approach that SM samples are more statistically homogeneous than AM samples has not been confirmed by the data. An analysis of fitness to SM and AM of Polish datasets made for seven distributions pointed to Pearson (3) distribution as the best for AM and Summer Maxima, whereas it was impossible to select a single best model for winter samples. In the multi‐model approach to FFA, the tree functions, i.e., Pe(3), CD3 and LN3, should be involved for both SM and AM. As the case study, Warsaw gauge on the Vistula River was selected. While most of AM elements are here from winter season, the prevailing majority of extreme annual floods are the summer maxima. The upper quantile estimates got by means of classical annual and two‐season methods happen to be fairly close; what's more they are nearly equal to the quantiles calculated just for the season of dominating extreme floods. Copyright © 2011 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

A plastic-damage concrete model for earthquake analysis of dams

A new plastic-damage constitutive model for cyclic loading of concrete has been developed for the earthquake analysis of concrete dams. The rate-independent model consistently includes the effects of strain softening, represented by separate damage variables for tension and compression. A simple scalar degradation model simulates the effects of damage on the elastic stiffness and the recovery of stiffness after cracks close. To simulate large crack opening displacements, the evolution of inelastic strain is stopped beyond a critical value for the tensile damage variable. Subsequent deformation can be recovered upon crack closing. The rate-independent plastic-damage model forms the backbone model for a rate-dependent viscoplastic extension. The rate-dependent regularization is necessary to obtain a unique and mesh objective numerical solution. Damping is represented as a linear viscoelastic behaviour proportional to the elastic stiffness including the degradation damage. The plastic-damage constitutive model is used to evaluate the response of Koyna dam in the 1967 Koyna earthquake. The analysis shows two localized cracks forming and then joining at the change in geometry of the upper part of the dam. The upper portion of the dam vibrates essentially as rigid-body rocking motion after the upper cracks form, but the dam remains stable. The vertical component of ground motion influences the post-cracking response. © 1998 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

A linear approach to the influence of discharge measurement error on flood estimates

ABSTRACT

A linear approach is presented for analysing flood discharge series affected by measurement errors which are random in nature. A general model based upon the conditional probability concept is introduced to represent random errors and to analyse their effect on flood estimates. Flood predictions provided by quantiles are shown to be positively biased when performed from a sample of measured discharge. Though for design purposes such an effect is conservative, this bias cannot be neglected if the peak discharges are determined from stage measurements by means of the extrapolated tail of the rating curve for the gauging station concerned. Monte Carlo experiments, which have been carried out to analyse small sample effects, have finally shown that the use of the method of maximum likelihood is able to reduce the bias due to measurement errors in discharge data.     

A time probabilistic approach to seismic landslide hazard estimates in Iran

Understanding where seismically induced landslides are most likely to occur is crucial in land use planning and civil protection actions aimed at reducing property damage and loss of life in future earthquakes. For this purpose an approach proposed by Del Gaudio et al. [1] has been applied to the whole Iranian territory to provide the basis to assess location and temporal recurrence of conditions of seismic activation of slope failures, according to the Newmark's model [2]. Following this approach, occurrence probabilities for different levels of seismic shaking in a time interval of interest (50 years) were first obtained through a standard hazard estimate procedure. Then, empirical formulae in the form proposed by Jibson et al. [3] and calibrated for the main seismogenic Iranian regions were used to evaluate the slope critical acceleration (Ac)_x for which a prefixed probability exists that, under seismic shakings, Newmark's displacement D_N exceeds a threshold×corresponding to landslide triggering conditions. The obtained (Ac)_x values represent the minimum slope resistance required to limit the probability of landslide seismic triggering within the prefixed value. A map reporting the spatial distribution of these values gives comparative indications on regional different exposure of slopes to shaking capable of inducing failures and provides a reference for hazard estimate at local scale. The obtained results show that the exposure to landslide seismic induction is maximum in the Alborz Mountains region, where critical accelerations up to ∼0.1 g are required to limit the probability of seismic triggering of coherent type landslides within 10% in 50 years.     

A canonical correlation approach to the determination of homogeneous regions for regional flood estimation of ungauged basins

Abstract

A canonical correlation method for determining the homogeneous regions used for estimating flood characteristics of ungauged basins is described. The method emphasizes graphical and quantitative analysis of relationships between the basin and flood variables before the data of the gauged basins are used for estimating the flood variables of the ungauged basin. The method can be used for both homogeneous regions, determined a priori by clustering algorithms in the space of the flood-related canonical variables, as well as for “regions of influence” or “neighbourhoods” centred on the point representing the estimated location of the ungauged basin in that space.     

Amplification of flood discharge caused by the cascading failure of landslide dams

The cascading failure of multiple landslide dams can trigger a larger peak flood discharge than that caused by a single dam failure.Therefore,for an accurate numerical simulation,it is essential to elucidate the primary factors affecting the peak discharge of the flood caused by a cascading failure,which is the purpose of the current study.First,flume experiments were done on the cascading failure of two landslide dams under different upstream dam heights,downstream dam heights,and initial downstream reservoir water volumes.Then,the experimental results were reproduced using a numerical simulation model representing landslide dam erosion resulting from overtopping flow.Finally,the factors influencing the peak flood discharge caused by the cascading failure were analyzed using the numerical simulation model.Experimental results indicated that the inflow discharge into the downstream dam at the time when the downstream dam height began to rapidly erode was the main factor responsible for a cascading failure generating a larger peak flood discharge than that generated by a single dam failure.Furthermore,the results of a sensitivity analysis suggested that the upstream and downstream dam heights,initial water volume in the reservoir of the downstream dam,upstream and downstream dam crest lengths,and distance between two dams were among the most important factors in predicting the flood discharge caused by the cascading failure of multiple landslide dams.     

Incorporating probabilistic approach into local multi-criteria decision analysis for flood susceptibility assessment

Flood risk management can be enhanced by integrating geographic information system (GIS) with multi-criteria decision analysis (MCDA). However, the conventional, deterministic MCDA methods ignore uncertainty in the decision-making process and fail to account for local variability in criteria values and preferences. Therefore, a spatially explicit MCDA model which effectively incorporates spatial heterogeneity is required. In this paper, a probabilistic or stochastic MCDA method which incorporates the uncertainty into a local weighted linear combination (WLC) was utilized to evaluate flood susceptibility; and an application case in Gucheng County, Central China, was developed. A GIS database of geomorphological and hydro-meteorological criteria contributing to flood susceptibility analysis was constructed using six conditioning factors: digital elevation model (DEM), slope (SL), maximum three-day precipitation (M3DP), topographic wetness index (TWI), distance from the river (DR), and Soil Conservation Service Curve Number (SCS-CN). The results of local WLC were compared with those of the global WLC. It shows that the local WLC model can provide much more valuable information about the spatial patterns of criterion values, ranges, weights, trade-offs and overall scores, whereas the global WLC can only depict the spatial distribution of criterion values and overall scores. The local WLC can also help to prioritize the most susceptible locations within a neighborhood when navigating the disaster assistance process. Moreover, the uncertainty analysis of criteria weights increases the degree of confidence in the model output. It is concluded that the presented approach can provide more insights and understanding of the nature of the flood susceptibility than global WLC.     

A unified approach for long-term behavior and seismic response of AAR-affected concrete dams

Concrete dams suffering from alkali-aggregate reaction (AAR) exhibit swelling and deterioration of concrete or even cracking over a long period. The deterioration of concrete may significantly affect the dynamic behavior of the structures, and it is necessary to estimate seismic safety of the deteriorated dams subjected to strong earthquakes. A unified approach is presented in this paper for long-term behavior and seismic response analysis of AAR-affected concrete dams by combining AAR kinetics, effects of creep and plastic-damage model in the finite element method. The proposed method is applied to a gravity dam and an arch dam. The long-term behavior of the AAR-affected dams is first predicted in terms of anisotropic swelling, spatially non-uniform deterioration of concrete, and cracking initiation and propagation with the development of AAR. The seismic response of the deteriorated dams is subsequently analyzed based on the state of the structures at the end of the long-term analysis. The AAR-induced expansion displacements obtained from the proposed method are in good agreement with the measured ones in the long-term operation. The simulated cracking patterns in the dams caused by the continuing AAR are also similar to the field observation. The results from the seismic analysis show that AAR-induced deterioration of concrete and cracking may lead to more severe damage cracking in the dams during earthquake. The dynamic displacements are also increased compared with the dams that are not suffering from AAR. The seismic safety of the AAR-affected concrete dams is significantly reduced because of the AAR-induced deterioration of concrete and cracking.     

Unified structural approach to linear flood routing

The structural theory of linear systems, which allows the non-homogeneous initial and boundary conditions to be expressed as part of a generalised system input, is applied to the problem of linear flood routing. The standardising functions needed to accomplish this are derived for three methods of lumped hydrologic flood routing (lag and route, Muskingum and Kalinin-Milyukov) and to three methods of distributed hydraulic flood routing (kinematic wave and two simplified forms of the linear St. Venant model). The appropriate Green's functions needed to complete the solution for these six cases are also presented.     

Risk analysis for clustered check dams due to heavy rainfall

Check dams are commonly constructed around the world for alleviating soil erosion and preventing sedimentation of downstream rivers and reservoirs.Check dams are more vulnerable to failure due to their less stringent flood control standards compared to other dams.Determining the critical precipitation that will result in overtopping of a dam is a useful approach to assessing the risk of failure on a probabilistic basis and for providing early warning in case of an emergency.However,many check dams are built in groups,spreading in several tributaries in cascade forms,comprising a complex network.Determining the critical precipitation for dam overtopping requires a knowledge of its upstream dams on whether they survived or were overtopped during the same storm,while these upstream dams in turn need the information for their upstream dams.The current paper presents an approach of decomposing the dam cluster into(1)the heading dam,(2)border dams,and(3)intermediate dams.The algorithm begins with the border dams that have no upstream dams and proceeds with upgraded maps without the previous border dams until all the dams have been checked.It is believed that this approach is applicable for small-scale check dam systems where the time lag of flood routing can be neglected.As a pilot study,the current paper presents the analytical results for the Wangmaogou Check Dam System that has 22 dams connected in series and parallel.The algorithm clearly identified 7 surviving dams,with the remaining ones being overtopped for a storm of 179.6 mm in 12 h,which is associated with a return period of one in 200 years.     

A cross entropy method for flood frequency analysis

The cross-entropy method with fractile constraints has been developed to estimate a random variable when the data are a set of independent observations of the variable. The method can claim several advantages over existing methods. It uses a reference distribution like the prior distribution in Bayesian analysis and likewise generates a posterior distribution.The method is of interest, in particular, because it satisfies two fundamental requirements for selfconsistency in the analysis of a probabilistic system based on data: a principle of invariance and a principle of data monotonicity.The method is applied to flood analysis. Robustness of the minimum cross-entropy method is compared with other methods: the methods of moments and the maximum likehood.     

基于人口统计数据的区域震害快速评估方法

在进行大规模城乡震害预测工作中, 需要使用与传统预测方式不同的新模型及新方法, 以便实现震害快速预测. 利用容易得到的人口统计数据中的人口及建筑抽样信息,通过建筑物分类,在已有的城市建筑震害基础上采用类比方法进行建筑物易损性分析,给出了人口数据及灾害损失的关系模型. 利用该模型建立福建省区域范围的建筑物不同结构平均易损性矩阵,按经济条件给出结构不同年代易损性矩阵调整系数,并建立地震灾害快速评估系统. 应用结果表明, 基于人口统计数据方法进行城乡区域尺度的地震震害评估模型, 具有投入少、 数据自动预测、定期更新且易于获取等优点.      

Probabilistic versus deterministic seismic hazard analysis: an integrated approach for siting problems

A methodology is proposed to determine design earthquakes for site-specific studies such as the siting of critical structures (power plants, waste disposals, large dams, etc.), strategic structures (fire stations, military commands, hospitals, etc.), or for seismic microzoning studies, matching the results of probabilistic seismic hazard analyses. This goal is achieved by calculating the source contribution to hazard and the magnitude–distance deaggregation, showing that, varying the selected frequency and the level of hazard, the reference earthquakes are changed as a result. A procedure is then adopted to minimize the residuals between the uniform hazard spectrum (target motion) and the design earthquake spectrum, to provide a specific earthquake scenario encompassing all the frequencies of the target motion. Finally, some considerations on the use and the influence exerted by ground motion uncertainty (σ) on hazard deaggregation are outlined.