Uncertainty and Sensitivity Analyses of Pit‐Migration Model

Abstract

Sand and gravel raining from a river bed results in irregular pits on the river bed. The migration of the pits might potentially threaten the safety of downstream bridge piers and other in‐stream hydraulic structures. Models were developed to simulate the movement of pits for predicting the effect of migrating pits on in‐stream structures. In view of random characteristics inherently residing in hydraulic and hydrologic processes, it is essential for an engineer to assess the overall uncertainty features of a hydraulic model output subjected to its stochastic input parameters. As an illustration, this paper analyzes the uncertainties of a pit migration model recently proposed by Lee et al. (1990) using three methods including the first‐order variance estimation method, point estimation technique, and Latin hypercubic sampling. Comparisons of merits and limitations of these methods are also made.