Identifying the effects of parameter uncertainty on the reliability of modeling the stability of overhanging, multi-layered, river banks

Composite river banks consist of a basal layer of non-cohesive material overlain by a cohesive layer of fine-grained material. In such banks, fluvial erosion of the lower, non-cohesive, layer typically occurs at a much higher rate than erosion of the upper part of the bank. Consequently, such banks normally develop a cantilevered bank profile, with bank retreat of the upper part of the bank taking place predominantly by the failure of these cantilevers. To predict the undesirable impacts of this type of bank retreat, a number of bank stability models have been presented in the literature. These models typically express bank stability by defining a factor of safety as the ratio of resisting and driving forces acting on the incipient failure block. These forces are affected by a range of controlling factors that include such aspects as the overhanging block geometry, and the geotechnical properties of the bank materials. In this paper, we introduce a new bank stability relation (for shear-type cantilever failures) that considers the hydrological status of cantilevered riverbanks, while beam-type failures are analyzed using a previously proposed relation. We employ these stability models to evaluate the effects of parameter uncertainty on the reliability of riverbank stability modeling of overhanging banks. This is achieved by employing a simple model of overhanging failure with respect to shear and beam failure mechanisms in a series of sensitivity tests and Monte Carlo analyses to identify, for each model parameter, the range of values that induce significant changes in the simulated factor of safety. The results show that care is required in parameterising (i) the geometrical shape of the overhanging-block and (ii) the bank material cohesion and unit weight, as predictions of bank stability are sensitive to variations of these factors.