Effects of Climate Change on Soil Embankments

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change has reported that the climate change process will continue over the next century. The changes in climate variables can make the currently stable embankments unstable. It is therefore imperative that we understand how climate change will affect embankments. This research focuses on understanding and quantifying the effects of climate change on the stability of soil embankments in Ontario, Canada. The stability of embankments was analyzed for the current and future climates using numerical modeling technique. The effects of future climate were then quantified by comparing the future stability of embankments with its historical stability. The results of this research show that the effects of climate change also depend on the hydraulic properties of the fill materials. Embankments with sand fill withstand the adverse effects of climate change, and showed better performance over the embankments with silt fill.