U.S. Army Corps of Engineers (ERDC) Grant: Analysis and Evaluation of Bio-Cemented Soils for Dam and Levee Flood Mitigation

A.    Short Description of Funding Opportunity

ERDC seeks applications for: evaluating and analyzing water erosion measurement of bio-cemented soil collected from Dams and Levees.

B.    Background: Floods affect more people than any other natural hazard and pose extreme threats to infrastructure and environmentally sensitive areas. There are about 90,000 dams in the U.S. alone, of which nearly 17% have been identified as having a high-hazard potential, capable of resulting in the loss of human life and significant property damage in the event of failure. Reports indicate that erosion is the main cause of dam failures, with the Association of State Dam Safety Officials attributing 20% of dam failures in the U.S. While the Army monitors and mitigates soil erosion of its water infrastructure using conventional methods, it faces the challenge of finding novel solutions. Recently, biologically derived and/or -active construction materials and methods, such as microbially induced calcite precipitation (MICP), have emerged as promising non-resource-intensive options to enhance the erosion resistance of soils. However, field studies that validate the use of MICP for the mitigation of internal or surface erosion of water retaining structures are required. Here, we propose to evaluate MICP as a non-resource-intensive solution for enhancing the erosion resistance of soils in earth embankments.

C.   Program Description/Objective: Microbially induced calcite precipitation (MICP) treatment of soils promises to ensure water security by improving the resilience of earth embankment dams and levees through their stabilization, thus reducing logistical burdens and carbon emissions. Our team demonstrated that MICP treatment of soils is a cost-efficient and non-resource-intensive solution for contact erosion, a common geotechnical problem occurring on older water retaining structures such as earth embankment dams and levees. We are currently looking for experts on water erosion measurement for the erosion resistant MICP-treated soils collected from Army-oversighted Dams and Levees. The anticipated expertise we are looking is the capability to evaluate the analyze data on soil erosion of the MICP-treated soil samples and suggest and advise our team with the state-of-art knowledge on biocementation for publication. Potentially, we are looking for collaborators who can contribute technical experts through leveraging this program for demonstration and validation in the future.

D.   Public Benefit: In this program, we are investigating the soil samples collected from Army-managing sites so that we can test the potential application of bio-cemented soils for mitigation of erosion on the earthen embankments, such as dams and levees, which is the public benefit. The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers (USACE) established the Dam Safety Program to operate and maintain approximately 740 dams and associated structures nationwide, including many earthen embankment dams, and the U.S. Army Installation Management Command-Army Dams and Transportation Infrastructure Program (IMCOM-ADTIP) oversees about 250 dams on military installations.