Bridge Scour

The Lake Erie and Lake Saint Clair (LERI) Basins in Indiana, Michigan, New York, Ohio, and Pennsylvania comprise one of more than 50 study units that are part of the USGS National Water Quality Assessment (NAWQA) Program. The long-term goals of the NAWQA program are to describe the water-quality status and trends in a large representative part of the Nation's surface-water and groundwater...

Flood events on rivers can cause erosion of the soil around a bridge foundation. This process is frequently referred to as bridge scour. Over time, scour can lead to bridge failure. To manage the risk from bridge scour, countermeasures are now used on bridge foundations. USGS scientists will be evaluating these bridge scour countermeasures at bridges across the country on rivers of various sizes.

Significant flood events on the Wabash River between 3 mi downstream of Mt. Carmel, IL to 10 mi downstream from New Harmony, IN caused the collapse of the railroad pier, bridge, and trusses which crossed the river. Scientists are using two models to evaluate how future flooding may impact the current I-64 bridge and the river channel. One model will focus on river meander migration. The second...

Bathymetric surveys allow us to measure the depth of a water body as well as map the underwater features of a water body. Multiple methods can be used for bathymetric surveys including multi-beam and single-beam surveys, ADCPs, sub-bottom profilers, and the Ecomapper Autonomous Underwater Vehicle. We use bathymetric surveys for many different types of research including flood inundation, contour...