Levee Levee A levee (), dike, dyke, embankment, floodbank or stopbank is an elongated naturally occurring ridge or artificially constructed fill or wall, which regulates water levels. It is usually earthen and often parallel to the course of a river in its floodplain or along low-lying coastlines. Speakers of American English (notably in the Midwest and Deep South), use the word "levee", from the French word "levée" (from the feminine past participle of the French verb "lever", "to raise"). It originated in New Orleans a few years after the city's founding in 1718 and was later adopted by English speakers. The
Embankment dam to fracture into smaller and smaller sections of earth or rock until these would disintegrates into a thick mud soup of earth, rocks and water. Therefore, safety requirements for the spillway are high, and require it to be capable of containing a maximum flood stage. It is common for its specifications to be written such that it can contain a hundred year flood. Recently a number of embankment dam overtopping protection systems have been developed. These techniques include the concrete overtopping protection systems, timber cribs, sheet-piles, riprap and gabions, reinforced earth, minimum energy loss weirs, embankment overflow stepped spillways and