Summary
This award supports research on understanding and predicting the evolution of the backward erosion piping (BEP) phenomenon in geotechnical flood protection infrastructure. BEP is a type of internal erosion mechanism, where soil in a permeable sand layer that resides underneath the cohesive foundation of river levees progressively erodes. BEP has been found to be the present in nearly one third of all recorded failures of water retaining structures. Moreover, flood risk is expected to increase across many parts of the United States as a result of climate change, causing the expected yearly floo
