A comprehensive review of geotechnical implications of floods and water-driven disasters.

Sci Total Environ

Department of Civil, Environmental and Construction Engineering, University of Alabama at Birmingham, Birmingham, AL, United States of America. Electronic address:

Published: July 2025


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Article Abstract

Past experiences with water-related natural disasters, including floods, and their adverse consequences, such as significant loss of life and economic burdens, underscore the critical need to identify and understand geotechnical phenomena that trigger failures and amplify detrimental effects. This review synthesizes and examines key factors influencing geotechnical issues arising from water-based extreme events, such as hurricanes and floods. These factors comprise seepage forces, shear- and liquefaction-induced scour, excessive pore water pressure, soil stratigraphy, and hydraulic boundary conditions (e.g., rapid drawdown). Additionally, soil erosion, both internal and surface types, is often prevalent and contingent upon other variables, including geological and geotechnical conditions, geographical characteristics, event timing, preceding and subsequent extreme events, built environment configurations, existing mitigation measures, vegetation, and the intensity of the disaster. This paper highlights diverse case studies to illustrate variations in these factors' intensity, sequence, and interplay, emphasizing the importance of integrated geotechnical assessment in disaster risk mitigation and infrastructure resilience. The main contribution of this paper is to achieve most common geotechnical challenges and factors involved in failures due to water-driven events. It is worth noting that the lack of studies on some of these factors is partially covered by research focused on offshore infrastructure. Additionally, failures in certain offshore infrastructure can have Cascadian effects on inland and coastal systems. The charts created in this study offer strategic frameworks for identifying essential factors in resilience studies.

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http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.scitotenv.2025.179731DOI Listing

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