Vulnerability assessment of embankments and bridges exposed to flooding hazards – oVERFLOw
WHAT'S NEW?
The overall objective of the oVERFLOw project is strengthening resilience to climate change impacts with the specific objective being the development of climate-resilient infrastructure. This will be achieved by:
• Reducing the known uncertainties in the VNK2 approach using techniques and procedures developed by the applicants in recent H2020 projects, e.g. non-intrusive geophysical techniques to quantify length effects, image processing using drone data to identify piping and additional sensors to provide real-time response of a critical infrastructure object (levee of bridge) during a flood event.
• The technology will be deployed and demonstrated at two pilot sites, at flood prone areas in the Netherlands and Croatia in order to (i) validate the new technologies and increase the TRL levels, (ii) transfer the state of the art risk based approach from the Netherlands to Slovenia/Croatia and (iii) to provide validation and buy-in from a range of stakeholders including CPAs, infrastructure owners, regional authorities and responsible bodies for cultural heritage and the general public.
The main expected impacts are:
• The vulnerability assessment methodologies and risk forecasting tool outputs will support various actors (Civil Protection, municipalities, administrations, professionals, etc.) in decision making processes related to planning and design measures related to the improvement of safety and resilience of flood protection systems and bridges, as most critical assets on the public infrastructure, in the case of extreme weather and flooding events.
• The models developed herein allow the asset owners to understand risk and performance of their infrastructure. This allows scarce financial resources to be focussed on the critical objects allowing significant cost savings and avoiding the waste of non-renewable resources in strengthening large sections which have sufficient resilience.
• In the case of a flood occurring before the resilience of a known weak-spot is increased, temporary reinforcements measures can be deployed by the asset owner or other mitigation strategies can be considered by the CPA.
• By increasing the resilience of the infrastructure the most vulnerable citizens will be protected from the impacts of climate change.
• A range of innovative technologies and management tools will be demonstrated (drone data application, advanced decision making etc.) which improve their technology readiness levels and increase their marketability and potential for inclusion in standards.
PARTNERS
