Abstract
The development of innovative monitoring systems to mitigate the risk associated to river levee failure is a recent challenge involving synergic effort of public institutions, specialized companies and academics. The present study examines a 350 m stretch of Adige river levees, located in the Province of Bolzano (Italy) close to the village of Salorno, interested in the recent past by moderate piping phenomena and subjected to subsequent interventions for seepage control (cut-off diaphragm wall). As is customary, the levee body and its foundation soil were investigated through geophysical and geotechnical surveys. The arising results provided a multi-dimensional characterization of the levee and the nearby soil water-meadows likely to be affected by preferential paths for piping. The detection of those paths entailed the joined use of piezometers and distributed optical fiber sensing (DFOS) system, the latter installed in a shallow trench on the landside. In the last days of October 2018, Northeastern Italy was hit by a tremendous storm and the Adige river was subjected to a relevant double flooding event. This exceptional circumstance, entirely recorded by the monitoring system, gives the chance to provide insight into the seepage process undermining the levee stability.
References
USSD Committee on Levees and USSD Committee on Monitoring of Dams and Their Foundations (2016) Monitoring of Levees. ISBN 978-1-88457-5.
Bonelli S (2013) Erosion in geomechanics applied to dams and levees. Wiley, London. https://doi.org/10.1002/9781118577165
Tresoldi G, Arosio D, Hojat A, Longoni L, Papini M, Zanzi L (2019) Long-term hydrogeophysical monitoring of the internal conditions of river levees. Eng Geol. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.enggeo.2019.05.016
Khan AA, Vrabie V, Mars JI, Girard A, D’Urso G (2010) Automatic monitoring system for singularities detection in dikes by DTS data measurement. IEEE Trans Instrum Meas. https://doi.org/10.1109/TIM.2009.2032880
Ng G, Oswalt K (2010) Levee monitoring system, Better management through better information, Engineering Systems, 1–12
Bersan S (2015) Piping detection in dike foundations by distributed temperature sensing: understanding the development of thermal anomalies. PhD thesis, Dept of Civil, Environmental and Architectural Engineering, Univ of Padova
Sheffer MR, Johansson S, Sjödahl P (2009) Recent developments in the use of temperature, resistivity and self-potential methods for monitoring embankment dam performance. In: Annual Conference Canadian Dam Association, Whistler, BC, Canada, 3–8 October, 2009
Pyayt AL, Kozionova AP, Mokhova II, Langd B, Krzhizhanovskayab VV, Slootb PMA (2013) An approach for real-time levee health monitoring using signal processing methods. Procedia Comput Sci 18:2357–2366. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.procs.2013.05.407
Henault J-M et al (2010) Truly distributed optical fiber sensors for structural health monitoring: from the telecommunication optical fiber drawling tower to water leakage detection in dikes and concrete structure strain monitoring. Adv Civ Eng. https://doi.org/10.1155/2010/930796
Radzicki K (2014) The important issues of levees monitoring with special attention to thermal-monitoring method application. In: South Baltic conference on new technologies and recent developments in flood protection, 5–6 June, Gdańsk (Poland). https://www.researchgate.net/publication/264985165
Beck Y-L, Khan AA, Cunat P, Guidoux C, Artières O, Mars J, Fry JJ (2010) Thermal monitoring of embankment dams by fiber optics. In: Proc 8th ICOLD European club symposium on dam safety, Innsbruck, Austria; September 22–23, 2010
Johansson S, Sjödahl P (2004) Downstream seepage detection using temperature measurements and visual inspection—monitoring experiences from Røsvatn field test dam and large embankment dams in Sweden. In: Procs. stability and breaching of embankment dams, EBL, Oslo, 20p
Shanafield M, Banks EW, Arkwright JW, Hausner MB (2018) Fiber-optic sensing for environmental applications: where we have come from and what is possible. Water Resour Res 54:8552–8557. https://doi.org/10.1029/2018WR022768
Glisic B, Inaudi D (2007) Fiber optic methods for structural health monitoring. John Willey & Sons. US Army Corps of Engineers ENGINEERING AND DESIGN—Instrumentation of Embankment Dams and Levees, EM 1110-2-1908, 30 June 1995
Cejka F, Benes V, Glac F, Boukalova Z et al (2018) Monitoring of seepages in earthen dams and levees. Int J Environ Impacts 1(3):267–278
Goltz M (2011) A contribution to monitoring of embankment dams by means of distributed fibre optic measurements. Doctoral thesis (Doktor der Technischen Wissenschaften) - Fakultät für Bauingenieur Wissenschaften, Leopold-Franzens Universität Innsbruck, Austria, 202 p
Su H, Kang Y (2013) Design of system for monitoring seepage of levee engineering based on distributed optical fiber sensing technology, Hindawi Publishing Corporation. Int J Distrib Sens Netw, 2013, Article ID 358784, 10 pages. https://doi.org/10.1155/2013/358784.
Zhu PY, Zhou Y, Thévenaz L, Jianga GL (2008) Seepage and settlement monitoring for earth embankment dams using fully distributed sensing along optical fibers. Proc SPIE 7160:716013–716017
Bersan S, Schenato L, Rajendran A, Palmieri L, Cola S, Pasuto A, Simonini P (2017) Application of a high resolution distributed temperature sensor in a physical model reproducing subsurface water flow. Measurement 98:321–324. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.measurement.2015.09.018
Sekula K, Borecka A, Kessler D, Majerski P (2017) Smart levee in Poland: full scale experimental study of levees by different methods. Comput Sci 18(4):2017. https://doi.org/10.7494/csci.2017.18.4.2220
Bersan S, Koelewijn AR, Simonini P (2017) Effectiveness of distributed temperature measurements for early detection of piping in river embankments. Hydrol Earth Syst Sci Discuss 22(2):1491–1508. https://doi.org/10.5194/hess-22-1491-2018
Bersan S, Koelewijn AR, Putti M, Simonini P (2019) Large-scale testing of distributed temperature sensing for early detection of piping. J Geotech Geoenviron Eng 145(9):04019052
Inaudi D, Cottone I, Figini A (2013) Monitoring dams and levees with distributed optic sensing. In: The 6th international conference on structural health monitoring of intelligent infrastructure Hong Kong, 9–11 December 2013
Sonzio G (2008) Caratterizzazione geotecnica e verifiche di stabilita’ del rilevato arginale sinistro del fiume Adige nel comune di Egna (BZ) – località Laghetti. Master thesis
Amabile A, Pozzato A, Tarantino A (2020) Instability of flood embankments due to pore water pressure build-up at the toe: lesson 2 learned from the Adige river case study. Can Geotech J (in press)
Zwanenburg C, López-Acosta NP, Tourment A, Pozzato A, Pinto A (2018) Lessons learned from dike failures in recent decades. Int J Geoeng Case Hist 4(3):203–229
Simeoni L, Tarantino A, Pozzato A, De Polo F, Bragagna M (2008) Progetto di un sistema di monitoraggio dell’argine dell’Adige, Rivista Italiana di Geotecnica, No 3, 2008
Pozzato AR (2009) Stability of river embankment of coarse-grained well-graded soil: the case study of the Adige river at Egna (BZ). PhD thesis, University of Trento
Bossi G, Bersan S, Cola S, Schenato L, De Polo F, Menegazzo C, Boaga J, Cassiani G, Donini F, Simonini P (2018) Multidisciplinary analysis and modelling of a river embankment affected by piping. In: 26th annual meeting of European working group on internal erosion. Milano, 10–13 September 2018
Chapuis RP (2004) Predicting the saturated hydraulic conductivity of sand and gravel using effective diameter and void ratio. Can Geotehn J 41:787–795
Busato L, Boaga J, Peruzzo L, Himi M, Cola S, Bersan S, Cassiani G (2016) Combined geophysical surveys for the characterization of a reconstructed river embankment. Eng Geol 211:74–84. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.enggeo.2016.06.023
Niederleithinger E, Weller A, Lewis R (2012) Evaluation of geophysical techniques for dike inspection. J Environ Eng Geophys 17(4):185–195
Perri MT, Boaga J, Bersan S, Cassiani G, Cola S, Deiana R, Simonini P, Patti S (2014) River embankment characterization: the joint use of geophysical and geotechnical techniques. J Appl Geophys 110:5–22. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jappgeo.2014.08.012
Weller A, Canh T, Breede K, Vu NT (2006) Multi-electrode measurements at Thai Binh dikes (Vietnam). NSG 4(2):135–143. https://doi.org/10.3997/1873-0604
Scorpio V, Surian N, Cucato M, Dai Prá E, Zolezzi G, Comiti F (2018) Channel changes of the Adige River (Eastern Italian Alps) over the last 1000 years and identification of the historical fluvial corridor. J Maps 14(2):680–691. https://doi.org/10.1080/17445647.2018.1531074
ETSCH—2000 Project, final conference Proc June 22 2017, University of Bozen, Bozen, Italy
Zen S, Bogoni M, Zolezzi G, Lanzoni S, Scorpio V (2016) Modeling the long-term planform evolution of meandering rivers in confined Alluvial valleys: Etsch-Adige River, NE Italy. American Geophysical Union, Fall General Assembly 2016, abstract #EP51A-0855
Schenato L (2017) A review of distributed fibre optic sensors for geo-hydrological applications. Appl Sci 7(9):896. https://doi.org/10.3390/app7090896
Albalat C, Garnero E (1995) Mesure de Fuites Sur le Canal de Jonage Avec un Capteur De Température à Fibre Optique Continûment Sensible; Technical Report EDF-D4007/23/GC/95-3018; Électricité de France S.A.: Paris, France
Cheng-Yu H, Yi-Fanc Z, Guo-Wei L, Meng-Xia Z, Zi-Xionga L (2017) Recent progress of using Brillouin distributed fiber optic sensors for geotechnical health monitoring. Sens Actuators A 258:131–145. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.sna.2017.03.017
Acknowledgements
The authors wish to thank the Mountain Water Authority of the Autonomous Province of Bolzano for the economical contribution to this study.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Additional information
Publisher's Note
Springer Nature remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations.
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Cola, S., Girardi, V., Bersan, S. et al. An optical fiber-based monitoring system to study the seepage flow below the landside toe of a river levee. J Civil Struct Health Monit 11, 691–705 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s13349-021-00475-y
Received:
Revised:
Accepted:
Published:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s13349-021-00475-y