Stream Power Application for Bridge-Damage Probability Mapping Based on Empirical Evidence from Tropical Storm Irene
Publication: Journal of Bridge Engineering
Volume 22, Issue 5
Abstract
On August 28, 2011, Tropical Storm Irene hit the state of Vermont with a severity that deposited 100–200 mm (4–8 in.) of rain across the state and resulted in damage or failure of over 300 bridges. The analysis of available data sets helped identify a set of 313 bridges (with a span greater than 6 m) damaged in a single state from a single extreme flood event that caused a 12-h rainfall recurrence interval that exceeded 500 years in some areas and 100 years throughout most of the affected areas. Based on available damage reports and photographs, the observed bridge damage was grouped into four levels of severity. This paper links watershed stream power to the observed bridge damage, develops a process for quantifying the hazard at bridges both as a case study and for future storms, and uses stream power as a hazard metric to produce probabilistic predictions of bridge vulnerability. The analysis also offers a comparison between damaged bridges and bridges that were not damaged in Tropical Storm Irene. Specific stream power (SSP) and the event-based Irene-specific stream power (ISSP) were computed and found to be both statistically significant at discriminating between damaged and nondamaged bridges, as well as between damage levels. The application of the empirical fragility curve analysis for SSP and ISSP produces a probability of damage generated from the results collected from Tropical Storm Irene. Spatially mapping the bridge-damage probability from an extreme event like Tropical Storm Irene enables the hazard to be effectively displayed over a broad range of scales (e.g., stream reaches, select watershed, statewide). The methodology presented here can be applied to other geographic settings and storm events of interest, and to the best of the authors’ knowledge, this is the first investigation comparing site-specific stream power to observed bridge damage at a network level.
Get full access to this article
View all available purchase options and get full access to this article.
Acknowledgments
This work was funded by the Vermont Agency of Transportation (VAOT) and the U.S. DOT through the University of Vermont Transportation Research Center. Partial support from Vermont EPSCoR with funds from National Science Foundation Grant EPS-1101317 is also acknowledged. The views and findings stated here are those of the authors, and do not reflect the views and findings of the agencies mentioned. The authors are grateful to the VAOT Structures and Hydraulics sections, VANR, VDEM, Milone and MacBroom Inc., and Vermont Land Trust for providing some of the resources for this work, particularly to Nick Wark, Pam Thurber, Carolyn Carlson, James McCarthy, Christopher Benda, Roy Schiff, Evan Fitzgerald, and Jessica Louisos. Suggestions made by Dr. Jeff Frolik, Dr. Eric Hernandez, Scott Hamshaw, and Alan Howard are also greatly appreciated. Special thanks go to Kristen Underwood for her guidance and consultation; her input was critically appreciated.
References
ArcGIS [Computer software]. Environmental Systems Research Institute, Redlands, CA.
Bagnold, R. A. (1966). “An approach to the sediment transport problem from general physics.” U.S. Geol. Surv. Prof. Paper, 422, 37.
Barker, D. M., Lawler, D. M., Knight, D. W., Morris, D. G., Davies, H. N., and Stewart, E. J. (2009). “Longitudinal distributions of river flood power: The combined automated flood, elevation and stream power (CAFES) methodology.” Earth Surf. Processes Landforms, 34(2), 280–290.
Besaw, L. E., et al. (2009). “Stream classification using hierarchical artificial neural networks: A fluvial hazard management tool.” J. Hydrol., 373(1–2), 34–43.
Biron, P. M., Choné, G., Buffin‐Bélanger, T., Demers, S., and Olsen, T. (2013). “Improvement of streams hydro‐geomorphological assessment using LiDAR DEMs.” Earth Surf. Processes Landforms, 38(15), 1808–1821.
Brooks, G. R., and Lawrence, D. E. (1999). “The drainage of the Lake Ha! Ha! reservoir and downstream geomorphic impacts along Ha! Ha! River, Saguenay area, Quebec, Canada.” Geomorphology, 28(1), 141–167.
Buraas, E. M., Renshaw, C. E., Magilligan, F. J., and Dade, W. B. (2014). “Impact of reach geometry on stream channel sensitivity to extreme floods.” Earth Surf. Processes Landforms, 39(13), 1778–1789.
Costa, J. E., and O’Connor, J. E. (1995). “Geomorphically effective floods.” Natural and anthropogenic influences in fluvial geomorphology, J. E. Costa, A. J. Miller, K. W. Potter, and P. R. Wilcock, eds., 89, American Geophysical Union, Washington, DC, 45–56.
Daly, C., Doggett, M., Gibson, W., and Smith, J. (2012). “PRISM climate data.” ⟨prism.oregonstate.edu⟩ (Mar. 1, 2014).
Dickenson, S. E., and Baillie, M. W. (1999). “Predicting scour in weak rock of the Oregon Coast Range.” FHWA-OR-RD-00-04, Oregon Dept. of Transportation Research Group, Salem, OR.
Douglass, S. L., Hughes, S., Rogers, S., and Chen, Q. (2004). “The impact of Hurricane Ivan on the coastal roads of Florida and Alabama: A preliminary report.” Rep. to Coastal Transportation Engineering Research and Education Center, Univ. of South Alabama, Mobile, AL.
Finlayson, D. P., and Montgomery, D. R. (2003). “Modeling large-scale fluvial erosion in geographic information systems.” Geomorphology, 53(1), 147–164.
Fonstad, M. A. (2003). “Spatial variation in the power of mountain streams in the Sangre de Cristo Mountains, New Mexico.” Geomorphology, 55(1–4), 75–96.
Gartner, J. D., Dade, W. B., Renshaw, C. E., Magilligan, F. J., and Buraas, E. M. (2015). “Gradients in stream power influence lateral and downstream sediment flux in floods.” Geology, 43(11), 983–986.
HAZUS [Computer software]. FEMA Flood Map Service Center, Washington, DC.
Homer, C. G., et al. (2015). “Completion of the 2011 National Land Cover Database for the conterminous United States–Representing a decade of land cover change information.” Photogramm. Eng. Remote Sens., 81(5), 345–354.
Horton, R., et al. (2014). “Northeast, climate change impacts in the United States.” The third national climate assessment, J. M. Melillo, T. C. Richmond, and G. W. Yohe, eds., U.S. Global Change Research Program, Washington, DC, 371–395.
Jain, V., Preston, N., Fryirs, K., and Brierley, G. (2006). “Comparative assessment of three approaches for deriving stream power plots along long profiles in the upper Hunter River catchment, New South Wales, Australia.” Geomorphology, 74(1), 297–317.
Jaquith, S., and Kline, M. (2001). Vermont regional hydraulic geometry curves, River Management Program of the Vermont Dept. of Environmental Conservation, Waterbury, VT.
Kiah, R. G., Jarvis, J. D., Hegemann, R. F., Hilgendorf, G. S., and Ward, S. L. (2013). “Hydrologic conditions in New Hampshire and Vermont, water year 2011.” U.S. Geological Survey Open-File Rep., 2013–1135, USGS, Reston, VA, 36.
Kim, Y. J., Marshall, W., and Pal, I. (2014). “Assessment of infrastructure devastated by extreme floods: A case study from Colorado.” Proc. Inst. Civ. Eng. Civ. Eng., 167(4), 186–191.
Kline, M., Alexander, C., and Pytlik, S. (2007). Vermont stream geomorphic assessment protocol handbooks, Vermont Agency of Natural Resources, Waterbury, VT.
Kline, M., and Cahoon, B. (2010). “Protecting river corridors in Vermont.” J. Am. Water Resour. Assoc., 46(2), 227–236.
Knighton, A. D. (1999). “Downstream variation in stream power.” Geomorphology, 29(3–4), 293–306.
Kruskal, W. H., and Wallis, W. A. (1952). “Use of ranks in one-criterion variance analysis.” J. Am Stat. Assoc., 47(260), 583–621.
Lecce, S. A. (1997). “Nonlinear downstream changes in stream power on Wisconsin’s Blue River.” Ann. Assoc. Am. Geogr., 87(3), 471–486.
Lebbe, M. F. K., Lokuge, W., Setunge, S., and Zhang, K. (2014). “Failure mechanisms of bridge infrastructure in an extreme flood event.” Proc., 1st Int. Conf. on Infrastructure Failures and Consequences (ICIFC2014), RMIT, Melbourne, Australia.
Magilligan, F. J. (1992). “Thresholds and the spatial variability of flood power during extreme floods.” Geomorphology, 5(3–5), 373–390.
Melillo, J. M., Richmond, T., and Yohe, G. W. (2014). Climate change impacts in the United States: The third national climate assessment, U.S. Global Change Research Program, Washington, DC, 841.
Miller, A. J. (1990). “Flood hydrology and geomorphic effectiveness in the central Appalachians.” Earth Surf. Processes Landforms, 15(2), 119–134.
NWS (National Weather Service). (2011). “Preliminary Hurricane/Tropical Storm Irene weather summary for the North Country.” ⟨http://www.weather.gov/media/btv/events/Irene2011/Irene2011.pdf⟩ (Dec. 1, 2016).
Okada, S., Mitamura, H., Ishikawa, H., and Hokkaido, S. R. (2006). “The collapse mechanism and the temporary restoration of Omori Bridge damaged by the storm surge of Typhoon No. 18 in 2004.” Technical Memorandum, Public Works Research Institute, Ibaraki, Japan, 40(9), 185–192.
Okeil, A., and Cai, C. (2008). “Survey of short-and medium-span bridge damage induced by Hurricane Katrina.” J. Bridge Eng., 377–387.
Olson, S. A. (2014). “Estimation of flood discharges at selected annual exceedance probabilities for unregulated, rural streams in Vermont, with a section on Vermont regional skew regression.” Rep. No. 2014-5078, USGS, Reston, VA.
Padgett, J., et al. (2008). “Bridge damage and repair costs from Hurricane Katrina.” J. Bridge Eng., 6–14.
Padgett, J. E., Spiller, A., and Arnold, C. (2012). “Statistical analysis of coastal bridge vulnerability based on empirical evidence from Hurricane Katrina.” Struct. Infract. Eng., 8(6), 595–605.
Reinfelds, I., Cohen, T., Batten, P., and Brierley, G. (2004). “Assessment of downstream trends in channel gradient, total and specific stream power: A GIS approach.” Geomorphology, 60(3–4), 403–416.
Rosenbloom, N. A., and Anderson, R. S. (1994). “Hillslope and channel evolution in a marine terraced landscape, Santa Cruz, California.” J. Geophys. Res. B: Solid Earth, 99(B7), 14013–14029.
Scawthorn, C., et al. (2006). “HAZUS-MH flood loss estimation methodology. II. Damage and loss assessment.” Nat. Hazards Rev., 72–81.
Schultz, M. T., Gouldby, B. P., Simm, J. D., and Wibowo, J. L. (2010). Beyond the factor of safety: developing fragility curves to characterize system reliability, Geotechnical and Structures Laboratory, Engineer Research and Development Center, Vicksburg, MS.
Seidl, M. A., and Dietrich, W. E. (1992). “The problem of channel erosion into bedrock.” Catena Supplement, 23, 101–124.
Siegel, S. (1956). Nonparametric statistics for the behavioral sciences, McGraw-Hill, Kogakusha, Tokyo.
Somerville, D. E., and Pruitt, B. A. (2004). “Physical stream assessment: A review of selected protocols for use in the Clean Water Act Section 404 Program.” Document No. EPA 843-S-12-002, U.S. EPA, Office of Wetlands, Oceans, and Watersheds, Wetlands Division, Washington, DC, 213.
Springston, G. E., Underwood, K. L., Robinson, K., and Swanberg, N. (2012). “Tropical Storm Irene and the White River Watershed of Vermont: Flood magnitude and geomorphic impacts in guidebook to field trips in western New Hampshire and adjacent Vermont and Massachusetts.” Proc., 104th Meeting of the New England Intercollegiate Geological Conf., P. Thompson and T. Thompson, eds., Vermont EPSCoR Publications, Univ. of Vermont, Burlington, VT, B1-1–B1-41.
State of Vermont. (2012). “State of Vermont Tropical Storm Irene after action report/improvement plan final draft.” ⟨https://gmunitedway.files.wordpress.com/2012/04/ts-irene-aar-ip-2012_0409_final.pdf⟩ (Jul. 14, 2015).
Thomas, P., Jones, T., and Azizi, S. C. (2013). “Jousting with bridges.” FEMA’s Historic Preservation Section, Joint Field Office, Essex Junction, VT.
USGS. (2011). “High flows in New Hampshire and Vermont from Tropical Storm Irene estimated.” ⟨http://nh.water.usgs.gov/WhatsNew/Irene_aug2011.htm⟩ (Jul. 15, 2014).
USGS. (2013). “National hydrography dataset, high resolution: U.S. Geological Survey, The National Map, National Hydrography Dataset.” U.S. Geological Survey. ⟨http://nhd.usgs.gov/⟩ (Mar. 1, 2014).
University of Vermont. (2016). “Data on bridges that were and were not damaged in Tropical Storm Irene (2011).” ⟨http://go.uvm.edu/vtbridges-irene-data⟩ (Mar. 1, 2014).
VCGI (Vermont Center for Geographic Information). (2006). “Vermont ‘hydrologically corrected’ digital elevation model (VTHYDRODEM).” ⟨http://maps.vcgi.vermont.gov/gisdata/metadata/metadata.htm?xmlfile=http://maps.vcgi.vermont.gov/gisdata/metadata/ElevationDEM_VTHYDRODEM.xml,xslfile=xsl/FGDC_Plus_body.xsl⟩ (Dec. 1, 2016).
Vermont Agency of Transportation. (2014). “Engineering image archives.” ⟨http://vtransmap01.aot.state.vt.us/rp/dpr/⟩ (Dec. 1, 2016).
Vocal Ferencevic, M., and Ashmore, P. (2012). “Creating and evaluating digital elevation model‐based stream‐power map as a stream assessment tool.” River Res. Appl., 28(9), 1394–1416.
Wang, H., Hsieh, S. C., Lin, C., and Wang, C. Y. (2014). “Forensic diagnosis on flood-induced bridge failure. I. Determination of the possible causes of failure.” J. Perform. Constr. Facil., 76–84.
Information & Authors
Information
Published In
Journal of Bridge Engineering
Volume 22 • Issue 5 • May 2017
Copyright
© 2017 American Society of Civil Engineers.
History
Received: Feb 22, 2016
Accepted: Oct 24, 2016
Published online: Jan 16, 2017
Published in print: May 1, 2017
Discussion open until: Jun 16, 2017
Authors
Metrics & Citations
Metrics
Citations
Download citation
If you have the appropriate software installed, you can download article citation data to the citation manager of your choice. Simply select your manager software from the list below and click Download.