Location
New York, New York
Date
15 Apr 2004, 1:00pm - 2:45pm
Abstract
In August 2003, after a very dry and warm summer, one of the dikes along a canal in The Netherlands failed at night. Because of this dike breach, the water in the canal started to run into a housing quarter of the village Wilnis, which is about 30 km Southeast of Amsterdam. A local contractor immediately started to close off the canal. By the time this was finished, 600 houses were already half a meter under water. The 2000 residents were evacuated in the early morning. Almost all residents could return to their homes the same evening after the water was pumped out of this area. Like many other small dikes in The Netherlands, the complete dike consists of peat. Since peat has a relatively low specific weight, a peat dike has a higher risk of being pushed aside by water pressure than sand or clay dikes. This horizontal sliding is a rare type of failure mechanism. Though, when the stability of this dike is checked with a simple one page computation, it becomes clear that the failure of the dike after a dry period was a realistic threat. For many years it was known that this part of dike was at risk. This was reported to the minister of Public Works in 1993, but the two involved provincial authorities, the provincial government and the water board, did not take steps until after the dike failure.
Department(s)
Civil, Architectural and Environmental Engineering
Meeting Name
5th Conference of the International Conference on Case Histories in Geotechnical Engineering
Publisher
University of Missouri--Rolla
Document Version
Final Version
Rights
© 2004 University of Missouri--Rolla, All rights reserved.
Creative Commons Licensing
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 4.0 License.
Document Type
Article - Conference proceedings
File Type
text
Language
English
Recommended Citation
Baars, S. Van, "Dutch Dike Breach, Wilnis 2003" (2004). International Conference on Case Histories in Geotechnical Engineering. 47.
https://scholarsmine.mst.edu/icchge/5icchge/session02/47
Dutch Dike Breach, Wilnis 2003
New York, New York
In August 2003, after a very dry and warm summer, one of the dikes along a canal in The Netherlands failed at night. Because of this dike breach, the water in the canal started to run into a housing quarter of the village Wilnis, which is about 30 km Southeast of Amsterdam. A local contractor immediately started to close off the canal. By the time this was finished, 600 houses were already half a meter under water. The 2000 residents were evacuated in the early morning. Almost all residents could return to their homes the same evening after the water was pumped out of this area. Like many other small dikes in The Netherlands, the complete dike consists of peat. Since peat has a relatively low specific weight, a peat dike has a higher risk of being pushed aside by water pressure than sand or clay dikes. This horizontal sliding is a rare type of failure mechanism. Though, when the stability of this dike is checked with a simple one page computation, it becomes clear that the failure of the dike after a dry period was a realistic threat. For many years it was known that this part of dike was at risk. This was reported to the minister of Public Works in 1993, but the two involved provincial authorities, the provincial government and the water board, did not take steps until after the dike failure.
