Hurricane Harvey caused severe wind damages and flooding in Fall 2017. In fact, the associated flooding can be classified as a 5,000 year event. Associated to the flooding, significant sediment relocation processes occurred. Sediment erosion around submerged structures and foundations, commonly referred to as scour, represents a significant risk to the stability of infrastructures. During Hurricane Harvey, early reconnaissance teams observed significant scour and erosion at bridge piers, river embankments, sheet pile walls, boulder walls, and other infrastructure with submerged foundations. However, safety constraints limited on site investigations while water levels were still elevated. An issue of post-event scour and erosion investigations is the refilling of scour holes. This means that when with receding water levels and flow velocities, sediment transported in suspension settles and infills the scour holes, often leading to false assessments of the magnitude of erosion during the event. Additionally, the infill is freshly deposited and often weak, potentially providing a false image of stability. This award will support the collection of perishable field data investigating scour and erosion, as well as post-event infill at locations impacted by flooding and storm surge during Hurricane Harvey. The collected data will advance the understanding of scour, erosion, and infill during extreme flooding events, and therefore, contribute directly to the improvement of risk assessment.
Mission | Combined Geotechnical and Geophysical Investigation of Texas Rivers Post Hurricane Harvey.
Cite This Data:
Stark, N., N. Jafari, R. Ravichandran, R. Jaber (2020). "Combined Geotechnical and Geophysical Investigation of Texas Rivers Post Hurricane Harvey.", in Combined Geotechnical and Geophysical Investigation of Texas Rivers Post Hurricane Harvey. DesignSafe-CI. https://doi.org/10.17603/ds2-835m-zp94
Hurricane Harvey caused major flooding events across the Gulf of Mexico, leading to geomorphological and site characteristics changes at several rivers. Post hurricane, scour holes and erosion were observed at bridge piers, river embankments, sheet pile walls, boulder walls, and other infrastructure with submerged foundations. To investigate the the local geomorphological changes and sediment dynamics during extreme events, a combination of geotechnical and geophysical methods, that can be deployed from small vessels and shallow waters, were used. The geotechnical methods consisted of a portable free fall penetrometer Bluedrop that penetrates through the riverbed, in addition to a grab sampler to collect disturbed samples. The acoustic methods consisted of a chirp sonar system deployed to resolve the riverbed strata; an acoustic Doppler current profiler (ADCP) Nortek AquaDopp HR to measure the water flow velocity during the survey period; and a side scan sonar to provide riverbed imaging.
Research Planning Collection | Expedition planning July 2018
Data Collectors
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Description:
This collection includes a document explaining the motivation behind this expedition and the rivers chosen, in addition to a readme file explaining the content of each folder in the "Field expedition July 2018" collection
This collection includes sub folders pertaining to the survey done at each river. Each sub folder includes raw and processed field measurements, in addition to lab testing on the collected samples and other location and flow info.