Sustainable Construction: Ensuring Stability Of Embankments And Improving Flood Defences

Main Context

Describe about the Sustainable Construction?

Sustainability is one of the most important aspects any development and the concern as well as essentiality of sustainability are constantly increasing. The construction is one of the significant parts of the development; with the help of this construction process the building of necessary infrastructure can be possible. From a long period of time the construction is taking place. Several structures of monument, building and bridges were constructed throughout the year. Several different types of construction can be founded (Aydin, Casey and Riffat, 2015). Some of the constructions are remaining; however, some of the old constructions are demolishing. In this point the sustainable construction is emerging as a refurbish concept of the civil construction engineering. Sustainability was always one of the main parameter of the construction process; however, currently its importance is increasing considerably. The construction of the embankment is very significant as these keep the water of flood and protect the adjacent civilization from the flood. The intrinsic stability of an embankment usually is secured if the embankment is designed as well as constructed according to the guideline (Djokoto, Dadzie and Ohemeng-Ababio, 2013). A sustainable slope gradient is a purpose of the kind of material as well as the height of the embankment. This particular paper will emphasize on the process of securing the stability of the embanking as well as improving the integrity of the flood defence.            

Review of the issues and various design option

The situation under consideration puts it simply that the embankments on the river banks face a risk of flood and therefore needs to be protected in way so that it can be sustainable. The company needs to analyse and evaluate all the roles of strategic overview that would help in mitigating the risks associated with flooding like that of river overflow, sea, groundwater, reservoirs or other surface water. One thing is to be kept in mind that since flooding is a natural event, no matter how many precautions one takes; there is no way of totally preventing it. The only way of preventing the impacts of flood is to make the embankments sustainable enough to overcome the harm caused by it. In order to manage the risks that accompany the flooding, one needs to take the necessary steps (Lutton, 2010). One of the very basic factors is that of investment. The company along with the government needs to make long-term investments for the embankments in order to make them sustainable for a long period of time. The overall risk of flood can be reduced by keeping a regular check on the embankments and improving their condition through investment. Another way of reducing the risk of flood is to locate the properties of construction outside the floodplain (Klijn and Schweckendiek, 2013). Therefore the strategy required for development control need to be mastered. Since this is not applicable in this particular case, thus the management needs to concentrate more on developing the embankments through the application of new technologies and other strategies of developing the areas at risk. The other strategies that can be used to protect the risk prone areas and make them sustainable are Landscaped Floodwalls, Perth Flood Alleviation Scheme etc (Withington, 2013).

Secure the Stability of the Embanking

The stability of the embankment depends on the functionality of the materials used in slope gradient as well as on the height of the embankment. The height of the embankment is measured to be the total height from ground to track that is the embankment up to the arrangement, frost guard layer and reinforcing layer along with the blast. The subsoil should have satisfactory level of load bearing capacity and should not have any sustainability issues (Kennedy, 2004). As per the rule the complete sustainability of the embankment can be determined by the condition of the ground and mainly the strength parameter of the ground. This specific condition may hinder the capacity of the potential weight of the embankment and it lead to the changing the design scenarios. Some time special measurement standard is needed for securing the stability of the embankment (“Sustainable Steel - Policy and Indicators 2014” published, 2014). At the time embankments use to be constructed on terrain with a vertical side slope, the local sustainability at the embankment base should be given specific attention. Good connection between the embankment as well as underlying ground must be secured. At the time the ground slope is more vertical than 1:3, the base should be rock-hard according the principles of constructing embankments. It may be essential to graze the rock to give a key (Kibert, 2013). The stabilisation standard may be segregated into two premier groups: first one is the measurement of the decreasing stresses in the ground. These can be happened throughout the constriction of breams, the bream are constructed with by the cross fallout from the road.                 

The flood defences such as floodwall can be integrated by constructing it with concrete materials like that of brick, masonry, sheet piling etc. In case of sheet piles, the most common material that is put to use is that of Steel. The steel needs to be galvanized in such a way so that it becomes rock hard and stainless at the same moment. The stainlessness of the steel will protect it from being affected by the water and thus there would be no erosion (Pender, 2010). This would ensure that no matter how long the flood reigns, the material used for the protection of the particular site and village under construction would not be harmed because of its longevity. Another technique of integrating the flood defences is by constructing them from the depth of the earth and making their base very strong so that the force with which flood water affects the defences can be gulped by it without undergoing any kind of destruction. The core needs to be made of clay as that would make the flood defence quite strong and would help in the reduction of the seepage through the embankment. The temporary barrier for flood defence that is used in many cases is often a compilation of numerous sandbags that acts like a sponge and holds the water inside its pores. But this is not very strong and thus the people and property at risk cannot be considered safe even for that temporary period of time (Sayers, 2012). Moreover this type of construction is not well integrated and thus cannot provide quality watertight defence and also on the other hand requires a lot of effort or manpower in order to be erected when emergency situation arises and also removed when there is no need for it anymore. Integration of the defences provides for a long-term protection of the place and people that are under risk and this is the reason why it is availed and applied by many companies or organizations that endeavour to protect the environment from the negative effects of flood.

Improve the Integrity of the Flood Defences

Both the integration of a flood defence along with the stability that it needs to have in order to protect the property and people at risk of the flood are both important in an equal way. But there are many a time when one needs to be given more priority than the other. Integration would ensure that the flood defence would be able to overcome the impact of the flood no matter how strong it is (Mutel, 2010). But without stability, each and every year during the time of flood, the flood defences would need to be constructed again in the same fashion which is not possible or feasible under any circumstances. Integration processes can be incorporated on the flood defences with the passage of time if they sustain the effects of the flood in a stable manner. Thus it can be understood that if the defences are not stable enough then they cannot be integrated as they would not be present after taking the effect of the impact of flood (Jha, Bloch and Lamond, 2012). Therefore in a way stability and sustainability of the flood defences are of much more priority as it is the basic requirement. Once the sustainability and stability factor of a flood defence is improved, it can be slowly and steadily improved and integrated. This would keep on lowering the level of risk with the passage of time. Thus in this case also priority needs to be given to improving the stability of the flood defences so that they can sustain themselves without undergoing much erosion and thereby protecting the property and people for long term purpose.

Conclusion

The embankment construction is most important as it help to enhance the integrity of the flood defence. The effect of pore water pressure use to be acted as the slice on the sustainability of the embankment. In addition to that, this can be accomplished by the development of two processes as well as applying the formula to numerous practice cases. On the basis of the outcome of the research study numerous conclusions can be drawn(Li et al., 2014). Primarily the magnitudes of the useful horizontal thrust as well as shear forces originated at the inner portion at the time of the inducing of the pore water pressure forces. This has stated that the pore water pressure grew have an impact on the values of the other inner portion forces. Secondly the addition of the net water pressure forces in the sustainability analysis of the embankment investigation clearly demonstrate that the activities of the water pressure forces deliver for promoting instability(Radzi and Droege, 2014). Thirdly, the accepted practice among the geotechnical engineers for resolving the pressure of the water within a provided portion of inner slice in the direction of the usual at the slice base for the optimization of its value constitute grave mistake.           

References

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