Risk analysis and probabilistic techniques are important tools in deriving guidelines for the design of breakwaters, including partial safety factors on level I. An overview of risk analysis, calculation procedures at levels I, II and III and system relations is given in Chapters 2-6. That part is mainly reproduced from the report: Probabilistic design of flood defences -Report of the Technical Advisory Committee for Dykes and Flood Defences (TAW), the Netherlands (in press, 1989). The chapters 1.3 and 2 of that report were rewritten in such a way that it yields more specifically for breakwaters instead of flood defences.
Chapter 7 gives an example of calculation and comparison of available methods at levels I, II and III. The Hudson formula was used as the reliability function in this example. The basic backgrounds of structural reliability theory can be found in the references given in this report.
