Experimental investigation of embankment erosion during fast geomorphic processes

Impulsive waves impinging over steep slopes of dams or embankments may produce erosion with intense sediment transport and relevant morphological changes during fast geomorphic transients. In order to be employed as valuable tools for risk assessment and hazard mitigation, the performance of current morphodynamic models in reproducing the physical evolution of such processes has to be carefully assessed. However, despite the inherent interest of the topic, the availability of suitable experimental data is relatively scarce. For this reason, additional tests, carried out under controlled conditions, may furnish the basis for an improvement in the knowledge of the bed evolution. The obtained experimental results constitute also an important resource to evaluate the numerical models performance. To this aim, a set of laboratory experiments, in which the impact of a dam break wave on an erodible slope is reproduced, has been designed and conducted. In the paper some preliminary results are presented and discussed.