Reliability analysis of flood defence structures and systems in Europe

In this paper the reliability analysis of flood defence systems and the probabilistic flood risk analysis approach are outlined. The application of probabilistic design methods offers the designer a way to unify the design of engineering structures, processes and management systems. For this reason there is a growing interest in the use of these methods in the design and safety analysis of flood defences and a separate task on this issue in the European FLOODsite project was defined. This paper describes the background of probabilistic analyses, uncertainties , and system analysis and how this has been dealt with under FLOODsite. Eventually, a case study at the German Bight has been used to illustrate the application of the tools and results are discussed here as well.