Which risk drastically increases when heavy rainfall saturates the soil near a river levee structure?

💡 Explanation

When saturated soil undergoes seismic shaking or increased hydrostatic pressure, liquefaction occurs as the effective stress decreases causing sediment to behave like a liquid, undermining the levee base. Therefore, liquefaction-induced levee subsidence is the greatest risk, rather than weathering, seismic stress or sediment deposition which are dominated by different forcing mechanisms.

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