Abstract:
River bank erosion can result in considerable riparian land loss and the delivery of
large volumes of sediment to reaches downstream. Consequently, the ability to predict the
stability and failure geometry of eroding river banks is an important prerequisite for estimating
the rate of bank erosion and sediment yield associated with bank erosion. In this
paper a new model capable of analyzing the stability of layered river banks is introduced.
The new model takes into consideration the effects of positive pore water pressure in the
saturated portion, and negative pore water pressure in the unsaturated portion, of the
bank. Also, the role of hydrostatic confining pressure due to the water level in the river
and the effects of the water in tension crack on stability analysis is accounted for. Unlike
many previous analyses, the failure plane is not constrained to pass through the toe of the
bank. However, it considers only planar-type failure mechanism. Finally the bank profile
geometry is not restricted to a special case. The new model has been tested using field data
sets from a site on the Sieve River in Italy and a site on Goodwin Creek in Mississippi.
The results show some agreement between the predicted and observed values of bank stability.
