The State of California has long recognized the need to upgrade the aging levees in the Sacramento and San Joaquin River Valleys and in the Delta. The State has appropriated $500 million of funding to the California Department of Water Resources (DWR) to begin a comprehensive program of levee evaluation and upgrades. Of critical importance and highest priority are the 300 to 350 miles of levees located in the highly populated urban areas of greater Sacramento, Stockton/Lathrop and Marysville/Yuba City.

Fugro is a prime subcontractor on the URS led team for the Department of Water Resources (DWR) Levee Geotechnical Evaluation project (Contract No. 4600007418). The $35 million project involves evaluation of 350 miles of levees that protect urban communities. The Team has developed a levee evaluation program that meets FEMA’s levee certification standards. The URS led team is performing exploration, testing and analyses on state/federal levees in the highly populated urban areas of greater Sacramento, Stockton/Lathrop, and Marysville/Yuba City. The geotechnical work plan for the DWR Urban Levee project follows a logical progression of work: historic data collection, field explorations, preliminary analyses, data gap assessment, supplemental data gathering through additional field exploration, and further analyses.

In addition to the basic geotechnical evaluation program of drilling and boring to collect levee soil samples, Fugro is providing other proven methods and innovative technologies to develop a comprehensive understanding of the levees' existing subsurface conditions. These methods include Light Detection and Ranging (LiDAR) topographic surveys, geophysical electromagnetic (EM) surveys, and underwater bathymetric surveys. Data collected from these and other methods are being used to cumulatively assess the levees' structural integrity and identify which areas are most in need of critical improvements or repairs.

Fugro's Role

• Geotechnical Exploration using Cone Penetration Testing (CPT) and Drilling.
  
  
• Piezometer Installation.
  
  
• Geotechnical Analyses.
  
  
• Identify Levee Areas Needing Rehabilitation.
  
  
• Geotechnical Design.
  
  
• Overall coordination and management of the tasks and subsurface investigations.