An approach to modelling roots in a boundary value problem

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4. An approach to modelling roots in a boundary value problem

Anthropogenic climate change is increasingly causing higher incidences of extreme weather events such as storms and droughts. This affects the stability and resilience of earth structures, as it disturbs their water balance by dual action of rainfall infiltration into the soil and evapotranspiration through vegetation roots and leaves. With the development of advanced coupled numerical tools to model soil-vegetation-atmosphere interaction in saturated and unsaturated soil conditions, it is possible to simulate the complete lifecycle of earth structures, such as infrastructure embankments, slopes, and reservoir earthfill dams. This paper focuses on the numerical modelling of roots as contributors to a water-balancing mechanism in the soil that controls the pore pressures / suctions in the soil, and hence the evolving soil strength due to suction changes. It then uses an embankment case study to demonstrate the performance of this modelling approach in the assessment of an infrastructure embankment, both as part of a lifecycle analysis and a resilience analysis that takes into consideration antecedent conditions in a changing climate and their influence on the stability of earthfill structures.

3rd International Workshop on Soil-Vegetation-Atmosphere Interaction (RootS2025)

2c. Numerical modelling of the behaviour of rooted soils and boundary value problems under static and dynamic loading conditions