Hydrological Risk Assessment of Old Dams: Case Study on Wilson Dam of Tennessee River Basin
Publication: Journal of Hydrologic Engineering
Volume 17, Issue 1
Abstract
This case study presents a risk analysis reassessment for the oldest dam in the Tennessee River basin—the Wilson Dam—based on postdam flow data. The hydrologic risk of old Wilson Dam was computed from historical flow data (spanning pre and postdam periods) and reservoir volume at the dam site. Additional flow data not previously used in the design phase of the dam helped to update more robustly the probability of flood occurrence that exceeded a particular return period during the life of a dam. The generalized extreme value (GEV) distribution was fitted to historical peak flow (at the dam site) and annual maximum reservoir volume using the -moment method. This reassessment approach has wide application in reservoir water and safety management for aging dams. The study underscores the need for a review of risk analysis for aging dams that have extensive postdam flow data, particularly in the United States. Furthermore, this case study also demonstrates the unique value of the -moment method in incorporating postdam flow data for more robust risk analysis.
Get full access to this article
View all available purchase options and get full access to this article.
Acknowledgments
The authors are thankful to the United States Geological Survey (USGS) of Reservoir Sedimentation Database website and Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA) for providing data and information. The views expressed in this article are those of the authors alone and should not be construed as representative of the TVA or any other state, federal, or private agency.
References
Association of State Dam Safety. (2002). “Tennessee dam safety program.” Hammond Communications Group, Inc. 〈http://www.damsafety.org〉 (Dec. 2009).
Australian National Committee on Large Dams (ANCOLD). (2003). Guidelines on risk assessment, Brisbane, Queensland, Australia.
Baker, V. R., Kochel, R. C., and Patton, P. C. (1988). Flood geomorphology, Wiley-Interscience, New York.
Bradley, A. A., and Potter, K. W. (1992). “Flood frequency analysis of simulated flows.” Water Resour. Res., 28(9), 2375–2385.
Buchberger, S. G. (1981). “Flood frequency analysis for regulated rivers.” Transportation Research Board, No. 832, Washington, DC.
Chow, V. T., Maidment, D. R., and Mays, L. W. (1988). Applied hydrology, McGraw-Hill Book, New York.
Cunnane, C. (1989). “Statistical distributions for flood frequency analysis.” World Meteorological Organization Operational Hydrology, Rep. No. 33, WMO-No. 718, Geneva, Switzerland.
Garbrecht, J. D., and Piechota, T. C. (2006). Climate variations, climate change, and water resources engineering, ASCE, Reston, VA.
Graf, W. L. (1999). “Dam nation: A geographic census of American dams and their large-scale hydrologic impacts.” Water Resour. Res., 35(4), 1305–1311.
Graf, W. L. (2006). “Downstream hydrologic and geomorphic effects of large dams on American rivers.” J. Geomorph., 79(3–4), 336–360.
Groisman, P. Y., Knight, R. W., and Karl, T. R. (2001). “Heavy precipitation and high streamflow in the contiguous United States: Trends in the 20th century.” Bull. Am. Meteorol. Soc., 82(2), 219–246.
Hill, P., Bowles, D., Jordan, P., and Nathan, R. (2004). “Estimating overall risk of dam failure: Practical considerations in combining failure probabilities.” ANCOLD Bull., 127, 63–72.
Hosking, J. R. M., and Wallis, J. R. (1993). “Some statistics useful in regional frequency analysis.” Water Resour. Res., 29(2), 271–281.
Interagency Advisory Committee on Water Data (IAC). (1982). “Guidelines for determining flood-flow frequency.” Bulletin 17B of the Hydrology Subcommittee, Technical Rep., U.S. Geological Survey, Reston, VA.
Johnson, G. C. (2002). “Water quality of springs in the valley and ridge physiographic province in the upper Tennessee River Basin-national water-quality assessment program (NWQAP).” Water-Resources Investigations Rep., 02–4180, U.S. Geological Survey, Nashville, TN.
Kalra, A., Piechota, T. C., Davies, R., and Tootle, G. A. (2008). “Changes in U.S. streamflow and western U. S. snowpack.” J. Hydrol. Eng., 13(3), 156–163.
Kiely, G. (1999). “Climate change in Ireland from precipitation and streamflow observation.” Adv. Water Resour., 23(2), 141–151.
Kite, G. W. (1988). Frequency and risk analysis in water resources, Water Resources Publications, Littleton, CO.
Milly, P. C. D., et al. (2008). “Stationarity is dead: Whither water management.” Science, 319(5863), 573–574.
Morris, G. L., and Fan, J. J. (1998). Reservoir sedimentation handbooks: Design and management of dams, reservoirs, and watersheds for sustainable use, McGraw-Hill, New York.
Nagy, I. V., Duash, K. A., and Zsuffa, I. (2002). Hydrological dimensioning and operation of reservoirs: Practical design concepts and principles, Kluwer Academic Publishers, Netherlands.
National Research Council (NRC) Committee on American River Flood Frequency. (1999). Improving American river flood frequency analyses, National Academies Press, Washington, DC.
Potter, K. W. (1991). “Hydrological impacts of changing land management practices in a moderate-sized agricultural catchment.” Water Resour. Res., 27(5), 845–855.
Rao, A. R., and Hamed, K. H. (2000). Flood frequency analysis, CRC Press, London.
Rodionov, S. N. (2004). “A sequential algorithm for testing climate regime shifts.” Geophys. Res. Lett., 31(9), L09204.
Rodionov, S. N., and Overland, J. E. (2005). “Application of a sequential regime shift detection method to the bering sea ecosystem.” ICES J. Mar. Sci., 62(3), 328–332.
Salas, J. D. (1993). “Analysis and modeling of hydrologic time series.” Chapter 6, Handbook of hydrology, D. Maidment, ed., McGraw-Hill, New York, 19.1–19.72.
Salas, J. D., Burlando, P., Heo, J. H., and Lee, D. J. (2003). “The axis of risk and uncertainty in hydrologic design.” Proc. 23rd Annual AGU Hydrology Days, Colorado State Univ., Fort Collins, CO.
Singh, V. P. (1996). Dam breach modeling technology, Kluwer, Dordrecht, Netherlands, 80–87.
Sivapalan, M., and Samuel, J. M. (2009). “Transcending limitations of stationarity and the return period: Process-based approach to flood estimation and risk assessment.” Hydrol. Processes, 23(11), 1671–1675.
Stedinger, J. R., and Griffis, V. W. (2008). “Flood frequency analysis in the United States: Time to update.” J. Hydrol. Eng., 13(4), 199–204.
Stedinger, J. R., Vogel, R. M., and Foufoula, G. E. (1993). “Frequency analysis of extreme events.” Chapter 18, Handbook of hydrology, D. Maidment, ed., McGraw-Hill, New York, 18.1–18.65.
Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA). (1988). “Comprehensive river basin development.” Paper 416, The World Bank Tech, Washington, DC. 〈http://books.google.com/books〉 (Dec. 2009).
Terzaghi, K., and LaCroix, Y. (1964). “Mission dam: An earth and rockfill dam on a highly compressible foundation.” Geotechnique, 14(1), 14–50.
U.S. Army Corps of Engineer (USACE). (2000). “National inventory of dams.” 〈http://www.usace.army.mil/Library/Maps/Pages/NationalInventoryofDams.aspx〉 (Dec. 2009).
Vick, S. G., and Bromwell, L. G. (1989). “Risk analysis for dam design in karst.” J. Geotech. Eng., 115(6), 819–835.
Villarini, G., Serinaldi, F., Smith, J. A., and Krajewski, W. F. (2009a). “Stationarity of annual flood peaks in the continental United States during the 20th century.” Water Resour. Res., 45(8), W08417.
Villarini, G., Smith, J. A., Serinaldi, F., Bales, J., Bates, P. B., and Krajewski, W. F. (2009b). “Flood frequency analysis for nonstationary annual peak records in an urban drainage basin.” Adv. Water Resour., 32(8), 1255–1266.
Williams, G. P., and Wolman, M. G. (1984). “Downstream effects of dams on alluvial rivers.” U.S. Geological Survey, Professional Paper, 1286.
World Commission on Dams (WCD). (2000). “Dams and development: A new framework for decision making.” World Commission on Dams Rep., 〈http://www.dams.org〉 (Dec. 8, 2008).
Xiong, L., and Guo, S. (2004). “Trend test and change-point detection for the annual discharge series of the Yangtze River at the Yichang hydrological station.” Hydrol. Sci. J., 49(1), 99–112.
Yen, B. C. (1970). “Risk analysis in design of engineering projects.” J. Hydrol. Eng., 96(4), 959–966.
Zhang, Z., Dehoff, A. D., and Pody, R. D. (2010). “New approach to identify trend pattern of streamflows.” J. Hydrol. Eng., 15(3), 244–248.
Information & Authors
Information
Published In
Journal of Hydrologic Engineering
Volume 17 • Issue 1 • January 2012
Pages: 201 - 212
Copyright
© 2012 American Society of Civil Engineers.
History
Received: May 24, 2010
Accepted: Apr 7, 2011
Published online: Apr 11, 2011
Published in print: Jan 1, 2012
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.