Impact of 2021 Western European Flooding on Geo-Structures
Publication: Forensic Engineering 2022
ABSTRACT
Between July 14–16th, 2021, record rainfall and subsequent flooding resulted in the deaths of over 200 people and billions of dollars-worth of damage in Germany and Belgium. An NSF sponsored Geotechnical Extreme Events Reconnaissance (GEER) Association reconnaissance mission was undertaken by the authors to investigate the effects of flooding in Germany, Belgium, and the Netherlands. The two-week-long mission provided insight to the performance of various geostructures such as building foundations, roads, and bridges. This paper provides a summary of observations made by the US-based GEER team in collaboration with many local European colleagues. Key observations presented include a bridge case study, the impact of scour and erosion on different structures, and soil-structure interactions. A review of the data used to inform the reconnaissance mission as well as the data collection technologies used, including terrestrial LiDAR, UAV-Structure from Motion (SfM), and multispectral imagery, is also presented.
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Forensic Engineering 2022
Pages: 322 - 330
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Published online: Nov 2, 2022
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