RESCUE

The RESCUE project will develop a state-of-the-art approach to assess the impact of future climate-induced floods on stability of existing river flood embankments, both locally and at a regional scale. The ‘local-scale’ approach will be validated against case studies made available by flood management agencies in UK, Italy, and Germany. The regional-scale approach will be built upon hands-on learning resulting from the implementation of hazard maps for existing flood defence systems from Associated Partners. In line with the combat to climate change, RESCUE will therefore focus on the development of carbon-efficient adaptation measures.

RESCUE will allow Dr Annarita Pozzato to shape an independent leading position in the management of flood defence systems in the context of climate change. She will be able to diversify her individual competencies by acquiring multi-disciplinary skills (stochastic hydrology, bio-engineering) and undertaking significant inter-sectoral experience through synergic collaboration with European public agencies. RESCUE will be instrumental in the creation of a European spin-out company, which is the career that Dr Pozzato is aiming to embrace. RESCUE will also give Dr Pozzato the chance of resuming her research career after a professional and maternity break.

• A hydro-mechanical model for the flood embankment, which takes into account the effect of suction and partial saturation, has been validated against two embankment failure case studies in the AltoAdige region in Italy.
• This analysis demonstrated quantitatively the role played by partial saturation on the mechanisms of instability of flood embankments.
• The effect of suction on the response of the flood embankment is twofold. It reduces the hydraulic conductivity of the embankment therefore preventing the penetration of water from the river-side slope and increases the shear strength along the portion of the failure surface above the phreatic surface. We have demonstrated that suction is an untapped soil reinforcement. If taken into account in the design, suction can allow for significant financial and carbon savings. To this end, we have put forward a novel approach to model evapotranspiration in the water limited regime based on the concept of Soil-Plant-Atmosphere-Continuum (SPAC). Finally, we have demonstrated that geophysical techniques can be successfully used to monitor the water regime within the embankment and, hence, to verify the ‘suction-based’ design of flood embankments.
• An approach has been developed to characterise susceptibility to failure of flood embankments at the regional scale. The approach has then been validated against the susceptibility of failure observed on a 13km long segment of the Adige river embankment.
• The effect of climate change has been analysed for the Adige River flood embankment in Italy. A study of the effect of climate change on hydrological response of nearby catchment in the Alpine region has been considered as a reference.