RIMNI SPECIAL ISSUE - Dam-Break Complexity in Embankment Structures Design

Deadline Date: 31 December 2026

Climate change is altering the spatial and temporal variability of the hydrometeorological parameters to a considerable degree by resulting in unpredicted extreme events such as floods. Floods are fast transient flows that may lead to structural failure of embankment structures such as dams, dikes, and levees while consequently affecting the adjacent settlements, causing loss of lives and substantial physical damage. In general, overtopping has been acknowledged as the leading cause of failure in earth embankment structures, which occurs if the river discharge exceeds the design value of the levee during a flood event. However, other factors such as seepage-induced piping or so-called "inner erosion "or "piping," are also found to frequently occur in embankment structures. The failure mechanism can lead to significant erosion of the embankment or even complete breaching of the entire structure.

Failure will occur typically because of the complex interaction between flow discharge volume and embankment structure resistance. Namely, the landslide occurred in the riverside of the structure resulting in the removal of fine soil, leading to substantial loss of the entire stability of the structure itself. Risk assessment analysis on the failure of embankment dams often requires the prediction of basic geometric and temporal parameters of a breach or the estimation of peak breach outflows. Flow discharge is usually simplified following the generalized assumption that it can be directly linked to the probability of exceeding the levee design discharge very often it may fail to represent unexcepted natural conditions due to the transient nature of the water level fluctuation in the riverside of the embankment structure. Risk analysis studies bridging the hydrological, hydraulic, and geotechnical complexity interlinkage under overtopping and/or transient hydraulic conditions for earth embankments are scarcely found in the literature. Therefore, this Research Topic welcomes studies focusing on the experimental investigation of the dam-break, including all types of embankment structures; numerical modeling (i.e., stochastic, finite elements, artificial intelligence, etc.) of the dam-break covering both hydraulic and geotechnical aspects are also appreciated. Last but not least, we are also expecting studies on various maintenance and upgrade techniques related to different types of embankment structures.

Deadline Date: 31 December 2026