Risk management of groundwater drawdowns in subsidence sensitive areas: Cost-benefit analysis of safety measures in infrastructure projects
Research Project, 2012 – 2017

Improvement of infrastructure in urban areas generally involves underground construction with tunneling and deep excavations. Construction work in cities founded on soft clay, has to consider land subsidence due to groundwater drawdown. The potential cost of excessive land subsidence in these projects is immense and may increase due to expected climate change conditions. The overall objective of this project is to develop a method for Value of Information Analysis (VOIA) regarding to what extent geotechnical and hydrogeological investigations and other measures are necessary. VOIA is a comparison of the reduced economic risk for inappropriate decisions with the cost for performing investigations and measures that reduce the risks. To estimate economic risks of inappropriate decisions concerning management of land subsidence probabilistic groundwater and subsidence modeling combined with economic valuation of consequences needs to be developed. This trans-disciplinary project will provide novel research on how to integrate existing theory on VOIA with probabilistic modeling and risk assessment of groundwater drawdown and land subsidence. The research is expected to give new insights on how to better predict the risk of harmful subsidence caused by groundwater drainage. More accurate risk predictions will make decision making more efficient, reduce cost of risk reduction measures and improve communication of the risks to stakeholders, authorities and contractors.

Participants

Lars Rosen (contact)

Chalmers, Architecture and Civil Engineering, Geology and Geotechnics

Claes Alén

Chalmers, Architecture and Civil Engineering, Geology and Geotechnics

Lars O Ericsson

Chalmers, Architecture and Civil Engineering, Geology and Geotechnics

Åsa Fransson

Chalmers, Architecture and Civil Engineering, Geology and Geotechnics

Jonas Sundell

Chalmers, Architecture and Civil Engineering, Geology and Geotechnics

Funding

Formas

Project ID: 2012-1933
Funding Chalmers participation during 2012–2017

Related Areas of Advance and Infrastructure

Sustainable development

Driving Forces

Building Futures (2010-2018)

Areas of Advance

Publications

More information

Project Web Page at Chalmers

http://www.chalmers.se/en/projects/Pages/R...

Created

5/4/2015 1