Assessment of Levee Flood Defence Structures against the Impacts of Predicted Climate Change – A Case Study of the Humber Estuary, UK

摘要

This research project aims to investigate the impact predicted climatechange might have on the level of resilience existing flood defensestructures are able to provide. In particular the research will focus onlevee flood defense structures and the effectiveness of plain grassreinforcement in preventing bank erosion. A review of literaturesurrounding external hydraulic processes, the wave dissipation effectsof reed beds and resistance of plain grass reinforcement was carried outand a methodology compiled for assessing the effectiveness of a leveestructure. The results of this research show that whilst reed beds doprovide some wave attenuation, this is not sufficient enough to preventthe level of overflow that ultimately causes the plain grassreinforcement protecting the structure to fail, leading to rapid erosion ofthe non-homogenous soil substrate.