For many years, the dam safety industry has recognized the importance of learning from dam failures and incidents. Particularly because these incidents and failures can lead to loss of life, property damage, economic impacts, and can affect dam owners, local communities, and the global dam engineering and safety industry. One of the important ways to learn from past incidents and failures and improve dam safety risk management practices is to perform a thorough investigation following such events. The need for clear guidance and federal investment in dam incident and failure investigations was proposed as far back as 1982 in a National Science Foundation paper. However, the industry has yet to determine a clear path forward on funding and a framework for the planning and implementing of these types of investigations.
The presentation evaluates recently proposed legislation for investigations following incidents and failures, including what is being done in other industries. It identifies the benefits of performing an investigation, including the need to better understand the mechanism leading to dam incidents and failures. The presentation presents information on the different types of incidents and failures and what should trigger an investigation. It also presents recommendations on the high-level scope for such investigations and different levels of reporting.
The presentation discusses the timing of performing investigations, level of independence based on type of incident or failure, and potential paths forward for funding, collecting, and sharing the information across the dam safety community. In summary, the dam safety industry would benefit with having a clear path forward to ensure investigations occur and are appropriately documented and shared so that others in the community can utilize the data when preparing future designs and/or completing reviews of existing facilities.
