The Impact of Sea Level Rise on Roadway Design and Evacuation Routes in Delaware

As the global temperature continues to increase, the sea level continues to rise at a rapid rate that has never been seen before. This becomes an issue for many facets of life but one of the most impacted is the transportation infrastructure. Many people living in low elevation coastal areas can become trapped by flooding with no way in or out. With Delaware being a coastal state, this would affect a large portion of the population and will have detrimental effects over time if nothing is done to combat sea level rise. The issue with sea level rise in transportation is that once the roads become flooded, they become virtually unusable and detour routes would be needed. If all the roads in a coastal area were to be affected by sea level rise, the options for detours would become limited. This article looks at direct solutions to combat sea level rise and indirect solutions that would specifically help transportation infrastructure and evacuation routes in Delaware. There is not one solution that can fix every problem, so many solutions are laid out to see what is applicable to each affected area. Some solutions include defense structures that would be put close to the coast, raising the elevation of vulnerable roads throughout the state and including pumping stations to drain the water on the surface of the road. With an understanding of all these solutions around the world, the ultimate conclusion came in the form of a six-step plan that Delaware should take in order to best design against sea level rise in these coastal areas.

Influence of fault slip on mining-induced pressure and optimization ofroadway support design in fault-influenced zone

This paper presents an investigation on the characteristics of overlying strata collapse and mining-induced pressure in fault-influenced zone by employing the physical modeling in consideration of fault structure. The precursory information of fault slip during the underground mining activities is studied as well. Based on the physical modeling, the optimization of roadway support design and the field verification in fault-influenced zone are conducted. Physical modeling results show that, due to the combined effect of mining activities and fault slip, the mining-induced pressure and the extent of damaged rock masses in the fault-influenced zone are greater than those in the uninfluenced zone. The sharp increase and the succeeding stabilization of stress or steady increase in displacement can be identified as the precursory information of fault slip. Considering the larger mining-induced pressure in the fault-influenced zone, the new support design utilizing cables is proposed. The optimization of roadway support design suggests that the cables can be anchored in the stable surrounding rocks and can effectively mobilize the load bearing capacity of the stable surrounding rocks. The field observation indicates that the roadway is in good condition with the optimized roadway support design.