Estimating Pavement’s Flood Resilience

Abstract

Although several studies observed pavement responses after flooding, no detailed quantification has been done to date. This paper has estimated different pavements’ performances with flooding to identify flood-resilient roads. This was shown through (1) new roughness and rutting-based road deterioration (RD) models, (2) the relationship between changes in roughness [International Roughness Index (IRI)] versus time and modulus of resilience (Mr) loss at granular and subgrade layers versus time, and (3) flood consequence results. The comparative analysis on different pavement performances shows that a rigid and strong pavement built to a high standard is the most flood-resilient, which may be adopted as a preflood strategy. Results obtained using two proposed new gradients of IRI (incremental change in IRI, ΔIRI) in Year 1 over probability of flooding (ΔIRI/Pr) and ΔIRI in Year 1 over loss in Mr (ΔIRI/MrL) as well as flood consequences provided similar results. Road authorities should consider changing their roads to flood-resilient pavements in the future. It is recommended to investigate after flood roads’ structural conditions and performances to validate the new ratio values of ΔIRI/Pr and ΔIRI/MrL.