Environmental Engineering Reference
In-Depth Information
References
With specific regard to flood and sea defences,
the UK's Department for Environment, Food and
Rural Affairs (Defra) has promoted a probabilistic
approach to their design through the publication
of Project Appraisal Guidance Notes. These
define procedures that must be followed in appli-
cations to the UK government for funding assis-
tance towards flood defence and erosion
protection works. Amongst other factors, these
procedures require designers to consider carefully
the uncertainties inherent in their scheme, and to
quantify these as well as possible. Where good
information about the construction materials and
the loadings is available, a formal probabilistic
approach can be adopted, thereby providing a
better understanding of the uncertainty, leading
to less conservatism in design and thus improving
cost efficiency.
Finally, we mention a few words of caution.
While reliability theory and probabilisticmethods
can help to quantify uncertainty they should not
be considered a panacea. Indeed, one danger of
applying such methods 'off the shelf' is that not
all the available information is used. An example
of this is when a discrepancy occurs between the
results of a reliability analysis and experience.
This might arise either because experience has
been incorrectly interpreted or because there is
an error in the reliability analysis. An examination
of the causes of the discrepancy will often lead to
a better appreciation of the essence of the design
problem, and thereby to an improved design
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Acknowledgements
The authors acknowledge the support of the En-
gineering and Physical Sciences Research Council
(EPSRC) (grant numbers GR/NO3136, GR/
S76304/01, EP/F020511/1 and EP/C002172/1) and
Defra (grant number FD2324) for the case studies
reported here. Adrian Pedrozo-Acu ˜ a also extends
grateful acknowledgement to theMexican govern-
ment for the support received from Consejo Na-
cional de Ciencia y Tecnolog
ıa (CONACYT) -
Scholarship No. 161279.
