Book Description

Levees, otherwise known as flood embankments or dikes, are a vital part of modern flood risk management. Many towns and cities would be uninhabitable without them. It is estimated that there are several hundreds of thousands of kilometres of levees in Europe and the USA alone. The International Levee Handbook (ILH) will offer international good practice on levees based on current knowledge and experience from six countries in one single, comprehensive handbook. In particular, this 1400+page handbook, will provide a guide to the evaluation, design, implementation, maintenance and management of levees.

The ILH is written to help a technically competent practitioner with a broad (but not necessarily expert) knowledge of the field to arrive at the best approach for a particular levee or levee system. It aims to provide information to support decision making rather than to direct it. The ILH will also seek to provide a client who has a technical background, but no particular specialist knowledge, with sufficient information to understand the main issues and general procedures likely to be followed by an experienced practitioner. Also, the ILH will provide some useful information for constructors (or other organisations) that may be advising the manager or designer, carrying out maintenance, or carrying out new construction work.

The ILH is aimed primarily at: