Delta Levee Vulnerability Study

Collaborators

Jay Lund (Project Contact)

Project Description

This project developed an index of the vulnerability of levees in the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta. This involved the development of:

1) an Accommodation Space Index, to calculate that space in the Delta that lies below sea level and is filled neither with sediment nor water; and

2) a Levee Force index, a proxy for the cumulative forces that can cause levee failure.

This project showed that the Levee Force Index increases significantly over the next 50 years, demonstrating regional increases in the potential for island flooding.

Additionally, there is a two-in-three chance that 100-year recurrence interval floods or earthquakes will cause catastrophic flooding and significant change in the Delta by 2050.

Program

Delta Solutions

Project Status

Active

Products and Resources

Anthropogenic accommodation space, or that space in the Delta that lies below sea level and is filled neither with sediment nor water, serves as a useful measure of the regional consequences of Delta subsidence and sea level rise. Microbial oxidation and compaction of organic-rich soils due to farming activity is the primary cause of Delta subsidence. During the period 1900-2000, subsidence created approximately 2.5 billion cubic meters of anthropogenic accommodation space in the Delta.