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Lookup NU author(s): Professor Richard DawsonORCiD
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Driven by a need for improved management of the defences protecting the highly developed floodplains of England and Wales, an efficient systems-based risk assessment methodology has been developed. The approach calculates the risk associated with systems of defences protecting low-lying land. The complex nature of the floodplain topography in England and Wales means that significant computational expense is required to obtain realistic estimates of inundation depth and extent. The risk assessment methodology is novel in that it uses Monte Carlo methods to estimate defence responses to a large number of loading conditions. Importance sampling techniques are a proven approach to efficiently estimating the probability of failure, rather than risk which is of interest to the decision-maker. A risk-based importance sampling methodology has been developed and is presented in this paper with the support of an example implementation in Towyn, North Wales. This case study demonstrates that risk is a complex function of joint loadings, beach response, defence resistance, floodplain topography and the geographical location of impacts in the floodplain. The application of this approach allows decision-makers to obtain an understanding of the system, its vulnerabilities, the most efficient means of allocating resource and how it may respond to future perturbations from external activities.
Author(s): Dawson R, Sayers P, Hall J, Hassan M, Bates P
Editor(s): Smith, J.M.
Publication type: Conference Proceedings (inc. Abstract)
Publication status: Published
Conference Name: Coastal Engineering: Proceedings of the 29th International Conference
Year of Conference: 2005
Pages: 3061-3073
Publisher: World Scientific Publishing Co Pte Ltd
Library holdings: Search Newcastle University Library for this item
ISBN: 9789812562982
