ESTIMATION OF RIVERBANK EROSION WIDTH AND RISK ASSESSMENT OF BRIDGE FAILURE

Abstract

 Heavy rainfalls in recent years have increased the number of abutment damage due to river channel migration. Here, we propose a method to statistically estimate bank erosion width using explanatory variables extracted from a physically-based meandering model. We also evaluate the bridge damage risk using the ratio of the half-bridge length to the estimated erosion width. Our model can successfully estimate the erosion width from bed slope, channel curvature, basin area, rainfall intensity, and soil conditions. Also, our study shows that the ratio of the half-bridge length to the estimated erosion width for locations with bridge damage is less than 1.