The Piano Key Weir is a type of labyrinth weir using overhangs to reduce the footprint of the foundation. These are directly placed on a dam crest. Together with its high discharge capacity for low heads, this geometry makes these weirs interesting in dam rehabilitation. However, the Piano Key Weir is a new weir type, first designed in 2001 and built from 2006 by Electricité de France. Even though experimental studies confirmed its appealing discharge capacities, the flow upstream, over and downstream of this complex structure is still not well known. This research presents experimental test results performed on a 1:10 scale model. The experiments aim at determining the flow features along the weir depending on the upstream head. The flow conditions are characterized in terms of specific discharge, velocity, pressure, water level and streamlines along the weir.

Piano Key Weirs are an effective solution for dam rehabilitation as well as new dam projects with a high level of hydraulic constraints. In order to improve the efficiency of their design, an experimental study of the influence of the main geometric parameters has been performed. Thirty one configurations were tested for a wide range of discharges. The results of the study show the influence of the weir height, the keys widths and the overhangs lengths on the discharge capacity and flow characteristics. Based on hydraulic considerations, optimum values of the main geometric ratios are provided. An analytical formulation is developed to predict the discharge capacity of the weir as a function of its geometry. It shows an accuracy of 10% compared to the experimental results of this study and from other sources.

Managing flood risk in Europe is a critical issue because climate change is expected to increase flood hazard in many european countries. Beside climate change, land use evolution is also a key factor influencing future flood risk. The core contribution of this paper is a new methodology to model residential land use evolution. Based on two climate scenarios ("dry" and "wet"), the method is applied to study the evolution of flood damage by 2100 along the river Meuse. Nine urbanization scenarios were developed: three of them assume a "current trend" land use evolution, leading to a significant urban sprawl, while six others assume a dense urban development, characterized by a higher density and a higher diversity of urban functions in the urbanized areas. Using damage curves, the damage estimation was performed by combining inundation maps for the present and future 100 yr flood with present and future land use maps and specific prices. According to the dry scenario, the flood discharge is expected not to increase. In this case, land use changes increase flood damages by 1–40%, to €334–462 million in 2100. In the wet scenario, the relative increase in flood damage is 540–630%, corresponding to total damages of €2.1–2.4 billion. In this extreme scenario, the influence of climate on the overall damage is 3–8 times higher than the effect of land use change. However, for seven municipalities along the river Meuse, these two factors have a comparable influence. Consequently, in the "wet" scenario and at the level of the whole Meuse valley in the Walloon region, careful spatial planning would reduce the increase in flood damage by no more than 11–23%; but, at the level of several municipalities, more sustainable spatial planning would reduce future flood damage to a much greater degree.

With inertia and gravity representing the dominant forces for most open channel flow applications (e.g. weir flow), Froude similitude is commonly used for scaling hydraulic performance data from the model to prototype structures. With weir flow, as the upstream head decreases, however, the relevance of surface tension and viscosity forces can increase to the point when the model and prototype similitude is not fully achieved through Froude scaling. Such discrepancies are referred as size-scale effects, and among other things, can result in variations in the head–discharge relationship, nappe trajectory, and air entrainment. Published criteria for avoiding significant size-scale effects for free flow over linear weirs have suggested that minimal heads of ∼0.02 to 0.07 m be respected, independently of the model size. In this study, the size-scale effect, minimum upstream head, and Weber number limits are investigated for four piano key weirs with geometric model scales of 1:1, 1:7, 1:15, and 1:25.