<p>Internal erosion is a significant threat to the safety of embankment dams. Backward erosion piping, characterized as a form of internal erosion occurring at the foundation of a dam, leaves a pipe in place as a result of particle erosion. Sellmeijer’s modified criterion, which is used for the assessment of critical conditions of backward erosion, has been recently questioned for statistical problems, e.g., overfitting and multicollinearity. In this study the criterion is revisited, and its statistical shortcomings are highlighted. Reanalyzing the test data over different scales leads to the development of alternative models. It is demonstrated that, while more compact, the proposed models are also more accurate for slope-type exit compared to Sellmeijer’s criteria. One of the proposed models is validated for prediction in hole-type exit configuration with data from the literature and those obtained in a recently developed experimental setup. The model perfectly predicts some data while overestimating others. The results reveal that the overestimation is mainly attributed to the grain size distribution of the given materials.</p>