Technical Studies

In Taiwan, landslide and erosion in slopes and river channels have become serious issues of flood protection since space for flood flows can be severely blocked by sediments and rocks in the wake of typhoons or extreme precipitation events. On the other hand, inadequate dredging may affect the stability of river channels, and therefore endangered adjacent levees, embankments or other infrastructures.

In this research, a dredge potential evaluation index (DPEI) was established by a survey of opinions from exports and scholars and consequent analysis. There are three levels in DPEI to categorize different dredge potentials in different reaches of river. This research project applied DPEI to evaluate the dredge potentials in Fengshan River basin and Houlung River basin, and designs a from-top-to-bottom standard operation procedure of evaluation on dredge potentials. In order to prevent over-dredging caused by inappropriate planning, the above procedure can be referenced by river administrations for the planning of dredging operations.