With climate change expected to bring more severe summer droughts and increasingly intense storms to the UK, concerns are growing over the long-term resilience and stability of earth embankments.
To investigate these impacts, we conducted a full lifecycle assessment of a railway earth embankment in Essex using the Imperial College Finite Element Program (ICFEP). The numerical model simulated the embankment’s construction, followed by 40 years of historical rainfall and evapotranspiration data, bringing the model to the present day. Advanced partially saturated hydraulic and constitutive models were employed, enabling the simulation to replicate the seasonal displacements observed in 2007, thereby validating the model.
A stochastic rainfall generator was developed to produce plausible future rainfall sequences and storm events, incorporating climate variables projected by UKCP18 (UK Climate Projections 2018). These future rainfall scenarios were applied to the model to simulate soil-atmosphere interactions through to 2080, allowing us to assess the embankment’s serviceability under changing climate conditions.
To evaluate stability and resilience, extreme storm events were introduced at various points in the embankment’s lifecycle, accounting for different antecedent moisture conditions.
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