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It has become necessary to estimate the quantities of runoff by knowing the amount of rainfall to calculate the required quantities of water storage in reservoirs and to determine the likelihood of flooding. The present study deals with the development of a hydrological model named Hydrologic Engineering Center (HEC-HMS), which uses Digital Elevation Models (DEM). This hydrological model was used by means of the Geospatial Hydrologic Modeling Extension (HEC-GeoHMS) and Geographical Information Systems (GIS) to identify the discharge of the Al-Adhaim River catchment and embankment dam in Iraq by simulated rainfall-runoff processes. The meteorological models were developed within the HEC-HMS from the recorded daily rainfall data for the hydrological years 2015 to 2018. The control specifications were defined for the specified period and one day time step. The Soil Conservation Service-Curve number (SCS-CN), SCS Unit Hydrograph and Muskingum methods were used for loss, transformation and routing calculations, respectively. The model was simulated for two years for calibration and one year for verification of the daily rainfall values. The results showed that both observed and simulated hydrographs were highly correlated. The model’s performance was evaluated by using a coefficient of determination of 90% for calibration and verification. The dam’s discharge for the considered period was successfully simulated but slightly overestimated. The results indicated that the model is suitable for hydrological simulations in the Al-Adhaim river catchment.

This article states the in vitro and analytical investigation in stability of homogenous embankment dams. Using PET recycles and studying their effects on homogeneous embankment dam's safety is the innovation of this investigation. This study includes three phases as laboratory phase, building the dam and separating lumped element model. Increasing the stability of reinforced dam by PET recycles to 21.38% than unreinforced dams is another finding of this study.

This paper presents the application of Differential Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) interferometry (DInSAR) algorithms for the precise monitoring of earth dams ground deformation. The test site selected for this study is the Conza Dam, located in the southern Apennines (Italy), very close to the epicenter of the big earthquake (M-w = 6.9) which took place on November 23th, 1980, striking the Irpinia region. Among the multiple advanced DInSAR techniques developed by the SAR community during the last decade, this work uses the so-called SUBSOFT software, developed by the Remote Sensing Laboratory (RSLab) group from the Universitat Politecnica de Catalunya (UPC), which is based on the use of Coherent Pixels Technique (CPT) algorithm. The analysis is carried out using 51 ENVIronmental SATellite-Advanced Synthetic Aperture Radar (ENVISAT-ASAR) images, corresponding to the period from 29th of November 2002 to the 30th of July 2010. In this framework, ground displacements recorded by a network of conventional ground-based sensors are also available for the same temporal span. Indeed, the embankment dam is well instrumented to measure internal settlements by means of cross-arms placed in six different cross-sections, and superficial displacements by means of targets for precise leveling. A statistical analysis has been performed to carry out a better comparison between the measurements obtained with the conventional field sensors and the interferometric data. The high agreement between final DInSAR displacements and in-situ instrumental data, demonstrates the reliability of such technique for the precise monitoring of civil infrastructures, and concretely, in dams with a high exposure factor and its consequent risk.

A method for seepage and settlement monitoring in earth embankment dams using fully distributed sensing along optical fibres is proposed. A model is developed for simulating and monitoring seepage and settlement systems. This model relates the strains and the temperature changes to the fiber Brillouin gain spectrum in the embankment dam embedding the optical fiber sensors. The model consists of two parts. Submodel 1 addresses the simulation of seepage inside the embankment dam. Submodel 2 relates the measurement of the fiber Brillouin gain spectrum to the changes in temperature and strain inside the embankment dam. Both the changes in temperature and strain during the process are used to reveal serious seepages and settlements occurring inside the embankment dam. The continuously decreasing temperature curve shows an abrupt dramatic increasing rate, which shows that the change is not caused by the temperature of the seepage water but the strain. In this paper, as an example, a model filled with the soil from Yellow River is built and bare optical fibers are embedded under different soil layers near the seepage path. The simulated seepage flows under various flow rates are monitored using the optical fibers and measured by a DiTeSt -STA202 distributed temperature and strain analyzer. A partial settlement within the embankment dam model is observed.

Triaxial tests are often used to determine the behavior and strength characteristics of soils. Specimen size can have a significant impact on the measured shear strength. Accordingly, the selected parameters affect the related geotechnical engineering analysis and design. We tested three different specimen sizes of loose Ottawa sand in triaxial compression tests. The measured shear strength and friction angle are used to explain some of the observed scale effects in engineering design and analysis. Critical state parameter and shear strength from the laboratory tests are employed to assess the static and seismic slope stability of an embankment dam, to calibrate a critical state soil constitutive model, to study the soil behavior under shallow foundations, and to evaluate liquefaction triggering and failure of retaining structures. We show that all of these analyses can be significantly affected by the choice of the specimen size used to determine shear strength parameters. While using small size samples for determining shear strength parameters might result in un-conservative design, a large sample size is consequently a more accurate representation of soil strength conditions and field deformations.

The Saddle Dam D at the Hydroelectric Power project Xe-Pian Xe-Namnoy in the Lao People’s Democratic Republic failed on July 23, 2018. An Independent Expert Panel (IEP) was established to investigate into and report on the failure of the embankment dam. The Executive Summary of the IEP final report (Anton J. Schleiss, Jean-Pierre Tournier, and Ahmed F. Chraibi, Report of Independent Expert Panel (IEP), Xe-Pian Xe-Namnoy Project - Failure of Saddle Dam D, Final Report. 20 March 2019) is presented here.

A first preliminary report is given of increased seismic activity following partial filling of the reservoir behind the highest embankment dam in the U.S.S.R. — the Nourek Dam.

Keywords: Remblai ; Barrage ; Fondation Reference Record created on 2004-09-07, modified on 2016-08-08