FAILURE PROBABILITY OF FLOOD DEFENCE STRUCTURES/ SYSTEMS IN RISK ANALYSIS FOR EXTREME STORM SURGES

Abstract

Extreme storm surges can cause failures of flood defences resulting in severe flooding of the hinterland and catastrophic damages. In order to quantify the risk of flooding an integrated risk analysis is being performed wherein one task is the determination of failure probabilities of flood defences. In this paper the failure probability calculations of flood defence structures and systems under the loading of extreme storm surges are reported. Moreover, the analysis of the breach and breach development is briefly introduced. Preliminary results of the failure probabilities and the breach modelling are presented using the example of the estuarine urban area of Hamburg, Germany. These results are put in context of an integrated risk analysis approach for extreme storm surges which is applied within an ongoing German joint research project.