A MECHANICAL ANALYSIS OF RIPARIAN TREE DESTRUCTION DURING THE SIMULTANEOUS EFFECT OF FLOOD AND STORM

Abstract

 The destruction of trees in the river (riparian trees) has been mainly analyzed with consideration of flood loading recently, and the decreasing of the critical resistive moment used to evaluate the destruction condition was not analyzed in those studies though the actual resistive moment may decrease with substrate scouring by the heavy flood. In the context of climate change, which increases the likelihood of simultaneous floods and storms, the mechanism of riparian tree destruction under both flood and wind load and the change of critical resistive moment with riverbed erosion should be investigated. We established a mechanical model and analyzed the criteria for the destruction of riparian trees under flood and wind loads. One simple model was also proposed with considerations of root-soil plate radius and erosion depth of river bed to analyze the decreasing of the critical resistive moment. The taller and smaller trees are more vulnerable to be destructed than medium trees, with the consideration of both flood and storm. The critical resistive moment decreased as compared to the previous study, and the usefulness of the established model was verified to some extent.