Solution method of overtopping risk model for earth dams

► We built overtopping dam risk model induced by concurrence of flood and wind. ► Improved Monte Carlo simulation and mean-value first-order second-moment are used. ► The nonlinear characteristics of uncertainty input factors are studied. Hydrologic risk analysis relies on a series of probabilistic analyses, and it is a complex problem in estimating the probability distributions of multiple independent and random variables. The goal of this study is to presents the procedure and application of a probability-based risk analysis methodology to evaluate earth dam overtopping risk that induced by concurrent flood and wind. The uncertainty arising from initial water surface level, flood, wind velocity, and dam height are discussed in this research. The improved Monte Carlo simulation and mean-value first-order second-moment method are used to solve the proposed dam overtopping risk model, respectively. The nonparametric kernel density estimation method, which can better learn the complex multimodal characteristic of probability density function than that of traditional parametric estimation method, is employed to improve the probability density function of initial water surface level. The latin hypercube sampling is introduced to generate uniform random number, which improves the efficient and stability compared with simple random sampling. Afterward, an application to the Dongwushi Reservoir in China illustrates that the dam overtopping risk computed using the improved Monte Carlo simulation is lower than that using mean-value first-order second-moment method. Furthermore, the sensitivity analysis show that initial water surface level is more sensitive to overtopping risk than wind velocity.