Abstract

Vulnerability of Culvert to Flooding
Track: Public Works
Author(s): Marie-Eve Gauthier, Ali Assani, Denis Leroux

Often, in the event of a flooding, culverts can't do their job, which can result in significant damage to the road and in the interruption of highway traffic flow. To help Quebec's Department of Transport to target culverts which are to be replace in priority, a method was created to delineate the drainage area of culverts. This method has been applied on a small and flat watershed located in southern Quebec. The use of a digital elevation model generated from stereoscopy and other auxiliary data such as roads and streams gave excellent results. After the marking out of watershed for each culvert, it was possible to derive, by regression, a linear relationship between the drainage area and the diameter of the culverts. When the diameter of a culvert was smaller than predicted, it was considered as more vulnerable to flooding.

Marie-Eve Gauthier
Université du Québec à Trois-Rivières
100 L-P Brodeur Trois-Rivières
Qc G8W 1P6 Canada
Trois-Rivières , Québec G8W 1P6
Canada
Phone: 819-373-4452
E-mail: marie-eve.gauthier@uqtr.ca

Ali Assani
Université du Québec à Trois-Rivières
3351 Boul. Des Forges, C. P 500
Trois-Rivières , Québec G9A5H7
Canada
Phone: 819-376-5011
E-mail: ali.assani@uqtr.ca

Denis Leroux
Université du Québec à Trois-Rivières
3351 Boul. Des Forges, C. P 500
Trois-Rivières , Québec G9A5H7
Canada
Phone: 819-376-5011
E-mail: denis.leroux@uqtr.ca