Evaluation and Presentation of Dam Failure and Flood Risks
Publication: Journal of Water Resources Planning and Management
Volume 123, Issue 4
Abstract
Safety studies for existing dams have found that some do not satisfy current estimates of the probable maximum flood (PMF). An event or influence diagram can describe the random factors that contribute to major inflow floods and that determine reservoir operation and possible downstream damages during a flood event. This allows calculation of the probability of dam failure and the distributions of damages and loss of life using combinations of various analytical and Monte Carlo methods. This paper discusses the efficiency of different evaluation methods: event trees, simple Monte Carlo sampling, Latin hypercube sampling, importance sampling, and an analytical/stratified Monte Carlo (A/SMC) method. The analysis suggests that the A/SMC method and importance sampling have great potential for the efficient estimation of dam failure risks. Numerical examples employ the distributions of damages and loss of life to show the character of trade-offs presented by many dam safety decisions and illustrate problems with the partitioned multiobjective risk method (PMRM). The use of partial expected damage and loss of life functions is recommended to show the importance of low-probability/high-consequence events.
Get full access to this article
View all available purchase options and get full access to this article.
References
1.
Baecher, G., Pate, M. E., and de Neufville, R.(1980). “Risk of dam failure in benefit-cost analysis.”Water Resour. Res., 16(3), 449–456.
2.
Bohnenblust, H., and Vanmarcke, E. H. (1982). “Decision analysis for prioritizing dams for remedial measures: a case study.”Res. Rep. No. R82-12, Dept. of Civ. Engrg., Massachusetts Inst. of Technol., Cambridge, Mass.
3.
Bowles, D. S. (1988). “Verde River risk assessment: an interim solution study.”A reclamation project: the changing times; Proc., 8th Annu. USCOLD Meeting, U.S. Committee on Large Dams, Denver, Colo.
4.
Bowles, D. S. (1990). “Risk assessment in dam safety decisionmaking.”Risk-based decision making in water resources; Proc., 4th Conf., Y. Y. Haimes and E. Z. Stakhiv, eds., ASCE, New York, N.Y., 254–283.
5.
Bureau of Reclamation. (1986). “Guidelines to decision analysis.”ACER Tech. Memo. No. 7, U.S. Dept. of the Interior, Denver, Colo.
6.
Bury, K. V., and Kreuzer, H.(1986). “The assessment of risk for a gravity dam.”Water Power and Dam Constr., 38(12), 36–39.
7.
Cochrane, H.(1989). “The economics of dam failure: another look at catastrophic losses.”Water Resour. Res., 25(9), 1931–1935.
8.
Davis, D. W. (1991). “A risk and uncertainty based concept for sizing levee projects.”Proc., Hydrol. and Hydr. Workshop on Riverine Levee Freeboard SP-24, U.S. Army Corps of Engineers Hydrologic Engrg. Ctr., Davis, Calif.
9.
DeKay, M. L., and McClelland, G. H.(1983). “Predicting loss of life in cases of dam failure and flash flood.”Risk Anal., 13(2), 193–205.
10.
Fontaine, T. A., and Potter, K. W.(1989). “Estimating probabilities of extreme rainfalls.”J. Hydr. Engrg., ASCE, 115(11), 1562–1575.
11.
Foufoula-Georgiou, E.(1989). “A probabilistic storm transposition approach for estimating exceedance probabilities of extreme precipitation depths.”Water Resour. Res., 25(5), 799–815.
12.
Haimes, Y. Y., and Stakhiv, E. Z. (1986). “Risk-based decision making in water resources.”Proc., Engrg. Found. Conf., ASCE, New York, N.Y.
13.
Haimes, Y. Y., Petrakian, R., Karlsson, P.-O., and Mitsiopoulos, J. (1988). “Risk analysis of dam failure and extreme floods: application of the partitioned multiobjective risk method.”IWR Rep. No. 88-R-1, U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, Water Resources Support Center, Alexandria, Va.
14.
Harper, G. A., O Hara, T. F., and Morris, D. I. (1994). “A new method for estimating extreme rainfall probabilities.”Hydro. Rev., 13(1), 42– 48.
15.
Karlsson, P.-O., and Haimes, Y. Y.(1988a). “Risk-based analysis of extreme events.”Water Resour. Res., 24(1), 9–20.
16.
Karlsson, P.-O., and Haimes, Y. Y.(1988b). “Probability distributions and their partitioning.”Water Resour. Res., 24(1), 21–29.
17.
Karlsson, P.-O., and Haimes, Y. Y.(1989). “Risk assessment of extreme events: application.”J. Water Resour. Plng. and Mgmt., ASCE, 115(3), 299–320.
18.
Keeney, R. L., Kulkarni, R. B., and Nair, K.(1978). “Assessing the risk of an LNG terminal.”Technol. Rev., 81(1), 64–72.
19.
Kreuzer, H., and Bury, K. (1984). “A probability based evaluation of the safety and risk of existing dams.”Proc., Int. Conf. on Safety of Dams, A. A. Balkema, Rotterdam, The Netherlands, 61–71.
20.
Lambert, J. H., and Li, D.(1994). “Evaluating risk of extreme events for univariate loss functions.”J. Water Resour. Plng. and Mgmt., ASCE, 120(3), 382–399.
21.
Langseth, D. E., and Perkins, F. E. (1983). “The influence of dam failure probabilities on spillway analysis.”Proc., Conf. on Frontiers in Hydr. Engrg., ASCE, New York, N.Y., 459–464.
22.
Lave, L. B., Resendiz-Carrillo, D., and McMichael, F. C.(1990). “Safety goals for high hazard dams: are dams too safe?”Water Resour. Res., 26(7), 1383–1391.
23.
Loucks, D. P., Stedinger, J. R., and Haith, D. A. (1981). Water resource systems planning and analysis. Prentice-Hall, Inc., Englewood Cliffs, N.J.
24.
Mays, L. W., and Tung, Y.-K. (1992). Hydrosystems engineering and management. McGraw-Hill, Inc., New York, N.Y.
25.
McCann, M. W. Jr. (1986). Workshop Proc., Current Devel. in Dam Safety Mgmt., Fed. Emergency Mgmt. Agency, Washington, D.C.
26.
McCann, M. W. Jr., Franzini, J. B., Kavazanjian, E., and Shah, H. C. (1985). “Preliminary safety evaluation of existing dams, Vols. 1-2.”Rep. No. 69, John A. Blume Earthquake Engrg. Ctr., Stanford Univ., Stanford, Calif.
27.
McKay, M. D., Beckman, R. D., and Conover, W. J.(1979). “A comparison of three methods for selecting values of input variables in the analysis of output from computer code.”Technometrics, 21(2), 239–245.
28.
Mitsiopoulos, J., and Haimes, Y. Y.(1989). “Generalized quantification of risk associated with extreme events.”Risk Anal., 9(2), 243–254.
29.
Mitsiopoulos, J., Haimes, Y. Y., and Li, D.(1991). “Approximating catastrophic risk through statistics of extremes.”Water Resour. Res., 27(6), 1223–1230.
30.
Morgan, M. G., and Henrion, M. (1990). Uncertainty: a guide to dealing with uncertainty in quantitative risk and policy analysis. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, U.K.
31.
National Research Council. (1985). Safety of dams: flood and earthquake criteria, G. W. Housner, ed., Nat. Acad. Press, Washington, D.C.
32.
National Research Council. (1988). Estimating probabilities of extreme floods: methods and recommended research. Nat. Acad. Press, Washington, D.C.
33.
National Research Council. (1994). Estimating bounds on extreme precipitation events, a brief assessment. Nat. Acad. Press, Washington, D.C.
34.
National Research Council. (1995). Flood risk management and the American river basin: an evaluation. Nat. Acad. Press, Washington, D.C.
35.
Palisade Corporation. (1992). @Risk: risk analysis and simulation add-in for microsoft excel, Newfield, N.Y.
36.
Parrett, N. F. (1987). “Bureau of Reclamation use of risk analysis.”Application of frequency and risk in water resources, V. P. Singh, ed., D. Reidel Publishing Co., Boston, Mass., 411–428.
37.
Paté-Cornell, M. E. (1989). “Warning systems in risk management: the benefits of monitoring.”Risk analysis and management of natural and man-made hazards, Y. Y. Haimes and E. Z. Stakhiv, eds., ASCE, New York, N.Y., 253–267.
38.
Paté-Cornell, M. E., and Tagaras, G.(1986). “Risk costs for new dams: economic analysis and effects of monitoring.”Water Resour. Res., 22(1), 5–14.
39.
Petrakian, R., Haimes, Y. Y., Stakhiv, E., and Moser, D. (1989). “Risk analysis of dam failure and extreme floods.”Risk analysis and management of natural and man-made hazards, Y. Y. Haimes and E. Z. Stakhiv, eds., ASCE, New York, N.Y., 81–121.
40.
Press, W. H., Flannery, B. P., Teukolsky, S. A., and Vetterling, W. T. (1986). Numerical recipes: the art of scientific computing. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, U.K.
41.
Rasmussen, N. C.(1981). “The application of probabilistic risk assessment technology to energy technologies.”Annu. Rev. of Energy, 6, 123–138.
42.
Reid, S. G.(1987). “Frequency-cost curves and derivative risk profiles.”Risk Anal., 7(2), 261–267.
43.
Resendiz-Carrillo, D., and Lave, L. B.(1987). “Optimizing spillway capacity with an estimated distribution of floods.”Water Resour. Res., 23(11), 2043–2049.
44.
Rose, K. A. (1993). “Sensitivity analysis in ecological systems.”Concise encyclopedia of environmental systems, P. C. Young, ed., Pergamon Press, Inc., Oxford, U.K., 534–539.
45.
Shachter, R. D., and Kenley, C. R.(1989). “Gaussian influence diagrams.”Mgmt. Sci., 35(5), 527–550.
46.
Shalaby, A. I.(1994). “Estimating probable maximum flood probabilities.”Water Resour. Bull., 30(2), 307–318.
47.
Starr, C.(1969). “Social benefit versus technological risk.”Sci., 165(3899), 1232–1238.
48.
Stedinger, J. R.(1983). “Design events with specified flood risk.”Water Resour. Res., 19(2), 511–522.
49.
Stedinger, J. R., and Grygier, J. (1985). “Risk-cost analysis and spillway design.”Computer applications in water resources, H. C. Torno, ed., ASCE, New York, N.Y., 1208–1217.
50.
Stedinger, J., Heath, D., and Nagarwalla, N. (1989). “Event tree simulation analysis for dam safety problems.”Risk analysis and management of natural and man-made hazards; Proc., 3rd Engrg. Found. Conf., Y. Y. Haimes and E. Z. Stakhiv, eds., ASCE, New York, N.Y.
51.
Stedinger, J. R., Heath, D. C., and Thompson, K. D. (1996). “Risk analysis for dam safety evaluation: hydrologic risk.”IWR Rep. 96-R-13, U.S. Army Corps of Engrs., Water Resour. Support Ctr., Inst. of Water Resour., Alexandria, Va.
52.
Stedinger, J. R., Vogel, R. M., and Foufoula-Georgiou, E. (1993). “Frequency analysis of extreme events.”Handbook of hydrology, D. R. Maidment, ed., McGraw-Hill, Inc., New York, N.Y., 18.1–18.66.
53.
Task Committee on Spillway Design Flood Selection. (1988). Evaluation procedures for hydrologic safety of dams. ASCE, New York, N.Y.
54.
Thompson, K. D. (1990). “Dam safety evaluation using an analytical/stratified Monte Carlo method,” MS thesis, Cornell Univ., Ithaca, N.Y.
55.
Von Thun, J. L. (1987). “Use of risk-based analysis in making decisions on dam safety.”Engineering reliability and risk in water resources, L. Duckstein and E. Plate, eds., M. Ninjof, The Hague, The Netherlands, 135–146.
56.
Woodbury, M. S., Eberlein, D. T., and Pansic, N.(1994). “Minimizing the probable maximum flood.”Civil Engrg., ASCE, 64(6), 64–65.
57.
Yankee Atomic Electric Company. (1984). “Probability of extreme rainfalls and the effects on the Harriman Dam.”Rep. YAEC-1405, Framingham, Mass.
Information & Authors
Information
Published In
Journal of Water Resources Planning and Management
Volume 123 • Issue 4 • July 1997
Pages: 216 - 227
Copyright
Copyright © 1997 American Society of Civil Engineers.
History
Published online: Jul 1, 1997
Published in print: Jul 1997
Authors
Metrics & Citations
Metrics
Citations
Download citation
If you have the appropriate software installed, you can download article citation data to the citation manager of your choice. Simply select your manager software from the list below and click Download.