Dam safety
Dam safety is the engineering, monitoring, and oversight used to prevent dam failure and reduce harm when failures or hazardous conditions occur.
Dam failure: The uncontrolled release of water caused by a dam's structural failure or loss of containment. Understanding failure modes guides measures that prevent breaches and reduce their consequences.
Dam inspection: The systematic examination of a dam and its appurtenant structures for defects or changed conditions. Inspections identify visible deterioration and conditions that require investigation or repair.
Dam: A barrier built across a river or watercourse to retain, divert, or control water. Dam safety applies to the structure, its foundations, reservoir, and associated works.
Dam-break flood: A flood wave produced by the sudden or progressive failure of a dam. Inundation modeling estimates the areas and populations exposed downstream.
Banqiao Dam failure: The 1975 failure of Banqiao and other dams in China during extreme flooding, causing catastrophic downstream losses. The disaster illustrates the consequences of flood loads exceeding assumptions and cascading infrastructure failures.
Slope stability: The resistance of a soil or rock slope to sliding or collapse. Unstable embankments and abutments can threaten a dam or its reservoir margins.
Dam monitoring: The repeated measurement and evaluation of a dam's condition and performance over time. Monitoring compares observed behavior with expected ranges and can provide warning of deterioration.
Hydrology: The science of water's occurrence, movement, and distribution on Earth. Flood estimates determine the water loads and spillway demands a dam must withstand.
Dam-break inundation modeling: The simulation of flood depths, arrival times, and extent after a hypothetical dam failure. These maps support consequence estimates, emergency planning, and warning decisions.
Teton Dam failure: The 1976 failure of an earthfill dam in Idaho during its first filling. The rapid breach focused attention on seepage, foundation conditions, and construction quality.