Hydraulic and morphologic risk assessment for rivers at bridges and pipeline crossings

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Bridges and other river crossings such as pipelines are defined by their intersection with rivers. Theseintersection points become important nodes within both transportation and environmental networks becausethey can be used to measure and understand the other, but also because they represent risk. Bridges andpipelines can fail because of scour and bed degradation, leading to significant expense and negative impacts onstream health. It is thus important to minimize the risk associated with construction and to monitor and modelthe ongoing risk due to passing floods, particularly in the context of changing land use and climate where thedesign criteria are both uncertain and inadequate.The objective of the proposed research is to develop tools that reduce the risk associated with bridges andpipeline crossings. The research will build on a digital tool for risk assessment at bridges that has beendeveloped by SNC Lavalin, the industry partner in this research. The expected outcomes of the currentresearch are 1. an additional analysis module to assess the risk associated with river instability and beddegradation at linear infrastructure crossings using a morphometric analysis of the watershed; 2. a protocol forfield based assessment of river/infrastructure intersections designed to reduce the uncertainty associated withparametrization in the numerical model. The long term objective of this research is to reduce risk associatedwith river crossings, particularly in relation to pipelines in Northern Alberta and bridges in Southern Ontario.