Levee Overtopping Risk Assessment under Climate Change Scenario in Kao-Ping River, Taiwan

With the growing concern about the failure risk of river embankments in a rapidly changing climate, this study aims to quantify the overtopping probability of river embankment in Kao-Ping River basin in southern Taiwan. A water level simulation model is calibrated and validated with historical typhoon events and the calibrated model is further used to assess overtopping risk in the future under a climate change scenario. A dynamic downscaled projection dataset, provided by Meteorological Research Institute (MRI) has been further downscaled to 5-km grids and bias-corrected with a quantile mapping method, is used to simulate the water level of Kao-Ping River in the future. Our results highlighted that the overtopping risk of Kao-Ping River increased by a factor of 5.7~8.0 by the end of the 21st century.

Construction Diversion Risk Assessment for Hydropower Development on Sediment-Rich Rivers

Hydropower is an important renewable energy, and Construction Diversion Risk (CDR) should be highlighted and assessed during hydropower development. Since sediment-rich rivers are widely existing around the world and have great hydro-energy potential, assessing CDR for hydropower development on sediment-rich rivers in terms of engineering feasibility is of significance. This paper proposes a CDR assessment method for the sediment-rich hydropower development environment. The method is concise and practical, reflects diversion uncertainties and correlation, and mainly adopts the Gumbel–Hougaard Copula and the Monte Carlo Simulation. Through simulating flood evolution and sediment impact during diversion, the method can assess CDR basing on the cofferdam overtopping probability. Case results show that the proposed method can achieve CDR assessment on a sediment-rich river and highlights sediment impact on the diversion risk. Through results discussion, the risk feature of construction diversion on sediment-rich rivers is revealed, that sediment impact causes the dynamic and yearly-risen CDR. Hence, our conclusions are: (1) the proposed method is feasible, effective and has industrial potential, and (2) a diversion scheme on sediment-rich rivers is suggested that adopts the design with high or yearly-heightening cofferdams, based on the advanced CDR assessment to cope with the risk features of sediment-rich diversion environments.

INFLUENCE OF CROWN-WALL ON WAVE OVERTOPPING PROBABILITY AND PROBABILITY DISTRIBUTION OVER A SEAWALL

In the past decades, the crest height of the seawall was determined by the allowable average wave overtopping rate q. Franco (1994) concluded that individual wave overtopping，particularly the maximum individual volume, provided a better design method than q, considering the stability of the seawall and the safety of vehicles and people along the coastal area protected by the coastal defense structures. Shanghai, located on the west bank of the Pacific Ocean, is quite sensitive to the risk of storm surges and violent wave overtopping. The crown-wall serves as an engineering measure to reduce the wave overtopping effectively.

Overtopping Risk Analysis Using MC-LHS Method

Based on the theory of risk analysis, this study develops a LHS –MC method to evaluate dam overtopping probability that accounts for the uncertainties arising from wind speed and peak flood. LHS method is used to generate samples of peak flow rate and wind speed especially for rare events. One example of dam overtopping risk analysis is presented to demonstrate the validity and capability of the proposed method. By means of numerical example, it is shown that LHS method is efficient which tends to convergence within a few simulation times. Reservoir routing, which incorporates operation rules, wind setup, and run-up, is used to evaluate dam overtopping probability.