PhD Alonso PizarroHydrology and Complex Hydrosystems
FONDECYT Initiation Grant · 11240171In progress

FLOOD RESILIENCE

Forensic Local scOur assessment fOr briDge resilience

An integrated probabilistic framework to estimate the current and future risk of bridge damage caused by flood-induced scour in Chile, combining hydraulic loading, scour hazard, structural vulnerability and exposure.

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Hydrometric monitoring station at a mountain river

Project Overview

Funding

ANID · FONDECYT Initiation 11240171
March 2024–March 2027

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Research Participation

1 principal investigator
23 project collaborators

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Deliverables

7 publications
2 dissemination · 4 open-science resources

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Funding

Funding Agency
National Research and Development Agency (ANID), Chile
Grant ID
11240171
Instrument
FONDECYT Initiation in Research 2024 — Engineering Group 1
Total Funding
102.756.000
Start Date
March 2024
End Date
March 2027
Award Institution
Universidad del Bío-Bío

FLOOD RESILIENCE is supported through ANID's FONDECYT Initiation in Research 2024 programme. It develops the science and tools required to estimate bridge-scour risk under multiple floods instead of relying only on post-event visual inspection or a single design scenario.

Research Team and Stakeholders

Research team
AP
PhD. Alonso PizarroUniversidad del Bío-Bío
Principal Investigator
Confirmed entities
Universidad del Bío-BíoAward institution
ANIDFunding agency
Co-Authors of publications
Bárbara Macías
Demetris Koutsoyiannis
Alberto Montanari
Oscar Link
Matías Moreno
Pablo Mendoza
Eduardo Muñoz-Castro
Mauricio Zambrano-Bigiarini
Silvano Fortunato Dal Sasso
Rodrigo Astroza
José Colombo
Francisco Pinto
Pablo Acuña
Panayiotis Dimitriadis

Case Study

  • Study SiteÁguila Norte Bridge, Metropolitan Region, central Chile.
  • Basin SettingUngauged contributing basin of 679 km², with a mean elevation of 1,566 m a.s.l.
  • Processes AssessedFlood discharge and hydraulic loading, time-varying scour and redeposition, nonlinear soil-pile interaction, seismic demand and component-level damage states.
  • Analytical PurposeAssess time-dependent foundation-capacity degradation and quantify engineering demand parameters and damage states under combined hydraulic and seismic actions.
  • Available EvidenceThe source map compares bridge imagery labelled 2007 and 2025.
Composite case-study map locating Águila Norte Bridge in central Chile and the Metropolitan Region, showing its contributing basin and bridge photographs labelled 2007 and 2025
Documented case study · Águila Norte Bridge

Project Methodology

The framework links ungauged-basin hydrology, hydraulic loading, time-varying scour and nonlinear structural analysis to estimate component-level demand and bridge damage states.

1

Basin and Data Preparation

Delineate the ungauged target basin, extract CR2 hydrometeorological variables from its polygon and estimate reference evapotranspiration for rainfall-runoff modelling.

CR2 data Basin polygon ETref
2

Regionalisation and GR4J Calibration

Select donor basins using centroid distance, drainage area, mean elevation and aridity. Calibrate GR4J in MARRMoT with CAMELS-CL records, evaluate RMSE, NSE and KGE, and transfer calibrated parameters to the target basin.

CAMELS-CL GR4J / MARRMoT RMSE · NSE · KGE
3

Discharge and Hydraulic Loading

Generate synthetic daily runoff, convert it from mm/day to m³/s and estimate design flows with AMS and PDS. HEC-RAS provides water depth, mean velocity, Froude number and hydrodynamic drag for the bridge.

AMS / PDS HEC-RAS Hydraulic loads
4

Time-Varying Scour and Refill

Use the HEC-RAS hydraulic variables in ScourAPP to relate relative scour depth (Z*) to dimensionless effective flow work (W*). RESORB adds partial redeposition and reconsolidation to the same erosion time series.

ScourAPP RESORB Scour time series
5

3D Soil–Foundation–Structure Model

Build a nonlinear OpenSees model of the superstructure, substructure and foundations. Columns and piles use fibre sections; distributed p-y, t-z and q-z springs reproduce soil–pile interaction and are updated at scoured depths.

OpenSees PySimple1 TzSimple1 · QzSimple1
6

Nonlinear Seismic Response and Damage

Apply seismic records to each evolving soil–foundation–structure state. Nonlinear dynamic analyses use Newmark integration and Rayleigh damping; component-level Engineering Demand Parameters support the final damage-state assessment.

Newmark Rayleigh damping EDPs and damage states
Integrated workflow

Proposed Methodology Diagram

Visual synthesis of the hydrological, hydraulic, scour and nonlinear structural-analysis workflow. The diagram preserves the original Spanish labels supplied with the project material.

Flowchart of the proposed methodology, from case-study basin delineation and GR4J simulation through extreme-value and HEC-RAS analyses, time-varying scour, OpenSees nonlinear modelling and damage-state assessment
PROJECT RESULTS

Preliminary Results

Preliminary and research results illustrate the response of the bridge and foundation system to scour, together with stochastic analyses of scour variability, persistence, extreme events and upstream sediment supply. Select any image to explore the corresponding result in detail.

Project Deliverables

Verified scientific publications, dissemination activities and open-science resources associated with the project.

Publication Year Venue Status Access
Past, present, and future of the Hurst-Kolmogorov dynamics in Stochastics: A bibliometric analysis of the last 50 years in water resources Alonso Pizarro; Pablo Acuña; Panayiotis Dimitriadis; Theano Iliopoulou; Demetris Koutsoyiannis 2024 Journal of Hydrology, 643, 132008 Published DOI
The Use of Unmanned Aerial Systems for River Monitoring: A Bibliometric Analysis Covering the Last 25 Years Alonso Pizarro; Desirée Valera-Gran; Eva-María Navarrete-Muñoz; Silvano Fortunato Dal Sasso 2024 Hydrology, 11(6), 80 Published DOI
Assessing the performance of single and multi-criteria calibration approaches for hydrological modelling: a comparative analysis Silvano Fortunato Dal Sasso; Alonso Pizarro; Beniamino Onorati; Maria Rosaria Margiotta; Yijian Zeng; Zhongbo Su; Salvatore Manfreda; Mauro Fiorentino 2025 Hydrological Sciences Journal, 70(16), 3115–3130 Published DOI
Combining uncertainty quantification and entropy-inspired concepts into a single objective function for rainfall-runoff model calibration Alonso Pizarro; Demetris Koutsoyiannis; Alberto Montanari 2025 Hydrology and Earth System Sciences, 29, 4913–4928 Published DOI
SPatial Efficiency And Kmoments (SPEAK): Evaluating Spatial Consistency in (Semi)Distributed Rainfall–Runoff Models Matías Moreno; Pablo Mendoza; Eduardo Muñoz-Castro; Mauricio Zambrano-Bigiarini; Alonso Pizarro 2026 EGUsphere preprint Under review DOI
Effective science communication in the face of water crises: a community perspective on challenges and best practice in HELPING Christina Orieschnig et al., including Alonso Pizarro 2026 Hydrological Sciences Journal, 71(6), 1207–1224 Published DOI
Variability and persistence of scour at bridges using stochastic simulations Alonso Pizarro; Oscar Link; Demetris Koutsoyiannis 2026 EGUsphere preprint; submitted to Natural Hazards and Earth System Sciences Under review DOI