Automated numerical analysis tool for assessing potential bank failures during flooding

River embankments failure due to severe flooding is an extremely complex phenomena triggering permanent or temporary modification to the river morphology, river flow and sediment movement. Reliable and automatic prediction of these movements is crucial to properly identify the protective measures for residents living within the inundation flood zones. In this regard, BISHOP, a decision tool to automatically predict, at multiple river cross-sections, the slope failure circle with the minimum safety factor has been developed. In this paper, the computer tool BISHOP, named after the simplified Bishop method, is presented. Its applications have proven to be highly efficient in real case studies, where the stability of multiple slope profiles, at different river cross-sections, must be analyzed to establish spatial and temporal evolution of the river banks failures. The integration of the proposed methodology within a comprehensive flow hydrodynamic, sediment transport and landslide calculation has particularly enhanced the evaluation of the flood-risk zone during major flooding. Typical results demonstrating the effectiveness of the developed methodology are demonstrated during the analysis of the evolution of a river reach downstream of a dam a dam break scenario. Copyright Springer Science+Business Media B.V. 2010