Stability Analysis of Dike to Impound Freshwater in Brackish Water Estuarine Environment

This paper presents the stability analysis of a dike proposed to impound the river flood waters within an estuary near the west coast of south India. The proposed dike will be located within Ashtamudi Lake, the second largest lake in the state of Kerala, India, separating fresh water from brackish water. Constructing a dike at Munro Island portion of Ashtamudi, which is about 9.23 km from Arabian Sea coast, can meet the water demands of the region as well as prevent the sinking of Island during high tide. The river dike is designed to construct artificially as rock filled structures. The stratigraphy in the top 2 m consists of clayey mud underlined by fine to medium sand up to 6 m followed by alternate layers of clay and sand up the investigated depth of 15 m. In this paper, the stability of the dike located in an estuarine environment has been investigated and the factor of safety values have been determined with varying water level conditions and varying properties of the underlying soil. A detailed parametric study using RocScience software is presented, considering all the design conditions. The expected settlement of the dike is estimated considering the soil profile at the location both manually as well as using software Geo5. Both were in good agreement and the maximum possible settlement was found to be less than half a meter.

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