Understanding dike safety

Professional Development hours (PDH's): 19

Supported by:

Course background

Millions of people have been affected by floods in Europe over the past century. Climate changes and sea level rise will increase the risk on floods even more. This imposes a high demand on the organisations responsible for dikes and their maintenance. On one hand increased sea and river water levels require higher crest heights for retaining structures. On the other hand they provide different loading or can invoke failure mechanisms previously unconsidered.

In the Netherlands several management systems are under development that will help organisations and authorities to make the right decision at the right time. These systems are able to predict situations based on experience and artificial intelligence.

Aim of the course

During the three-day course participants will see, learn and understand many different failure mechanisms. They will be able to predict, detect and monitor the mechanisms within a safety approach concept.

Description

This course has been developed for employees of national and regional agencies responsible for dike maintenance and dike safety.

The course focuses on four items:

• the state-of-the-art view on failure mechanisms; emphasis is on understanding the mechanisms rather than their mathematical descriptions;
• new developments in the field of inspection techniques for daily maintenance and for high water conditions;
• the know-how and experiences in application of reliability tools for different areas in Europe;
• different cases including a thorough analysis of the occurred events will be studied (New Orleans, Czech Republic).

For a detailed listing of subjects, please see the course programme.

Excursion

The fourth day of the course is an optional day. A visit to a typical Dutch polder system is scheduled, an aerial flight over the Deltaworks in Zeeland and an excursion to the Maeslant storm surge barrier. The Maeslant barrier finished construction in 1997 and serves to protect Rotterdam and its surroundings.

Enrolment, fee

The registration fee is € 1,450.-- for three days (50% discount for students) and € 325.-- for the optional fourth day with excursion. The course fee includes course documentation, lunches and refreshments during the breaks. The fee does not include VAT. International participants from within the European Union are charged 0% VAT only when they provide their organizations VAT number. Participants from outside the European Union are exempt from VAT, hence 0% VAT will be charged.

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