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University of Mississippi

Geospatial Assessment of Sustainable Built Infrastructure Assets and Flood Disaster Protection

Abstract

dc:description.abstract

This research was initiated with a review and synthesis of infrastructure related to city and urban growth, built infrastructure to meet transportation needs and travel demand, and role of mass transit in reducing adverse impacts on the environment and greenhouse gas emissions. Floods are the most frequently occurring natural disaster in the world, which so far claimed millions of lives and resulted in billion-dollar economic costs. Built infrastructure assets in urban and rural areas are not spared from floods' aftermath. A major motivation for this thesis was the 2011 megaflood disaster of Thailand which devastated the green campus of Asian Institute of Technology or AIT located north of Bangkok, a prominent higher education institution in Asia. AIT Campus was inundated with flood water for several weeks in late October and most of November 2011. The primary objective was to develop a geospatial decision support system for flood disaster protection of AIT using spaceborne remote sensing satellite imagery. Pre-flood 1-m IKONOS imagery of the campus area was used to create planimetrics and geospatial infrastructure inventory. Ground truth measurements along with site inspection photos facilitated further flood impact analysis and creation of a detailed flood depth map of the entire AIT Campus. Post-flood 1-m IKONOS imagery was used to estimate existing dike's top width. The imagery-based planimetric of the dike and related cross-section data provided by AIT were used to conduct stability analyses of a proposed raised dike system. Other flood protection strategies proposed in this study include concrete and composite sheet pile flood wall design. Value engineering analysis was implemented to evaluate these flood wall protection alternatives for AIT Campus. Based on comprehensive present worth life cycle cost analysis conducted over 50-year performance period, the least costly composite fiber-reinforced plastic sheet pile flood wall system was recommended to protect AIT Campus from future floods at US$ 1.71 million per km. Further recommendations for future flood protection include: (1) elevated AIT access roads and other campus area roads using composite sheet pile retaining walls and culverts and (2) one or more buildings protected by composite sheet pile peripheral enclosures for emergency management applications.

Degree

thesis:*
Name thesis:degree_name
M.S. in Engineering Science
Level thesis:degree_level
Thesis
Year dc:date.available
2012

Author and committee

dc:creator, dc:contributor.*
Author dc:creator
  • Durmus, Alper
Contributors dc:contributor
  • Waheed Uddin
  • Christopher Mullen
  • Ahmed Al-Ostaz

Subjects

dc:subject × 7

Identifiers

dc:identifier.*
Repository record dc:identifier
https://egrove.olemiss.edu/etd/94
OAI identifier oai:identifier
oai:egrove.olemiss.edu:etd-1093

Chain of custody

source
Harvested from
University of Mississippi
Base URL
egrove.olemiss.edu/do/oai/
Last updated
2026-07-24
Source record
OAI-PMH GetRecord
citation

Durmus, Alper. Geospatial Assessment of Sustainable Built Infrastructure Assets and Flood Disaster Protection. Thesis thesis, 2012. https://egrove.olemiss.edu/etd/94