Dam risks informational gap has an impact on all dams to a certain extent, whether they are hydro, tailings, or toxic dumps.
There are thousands of active dams around the world that are significantly different because of age, function, materials, construction style and care, maintenance care and performance.
What do all Dams Have in Common?
Dams are all exposed to hazards, natural or manmade. Furthermore, they all have, to extents that are sometimes worrisome, gaps in their documented history, past incidents, etc. These informational gaps and overconfidence may lead to normalization of deviance and other issues as shown by forensic studies. No dam fails because of one single cause.
So, beyond the intricacies of engineering analyses, those responsible for dams are facing an information gap which makes managing the worldwide dam portfolio very daunting. Indeed, even when analyzing cases in Brazil, where, by law, owners must to build a specific document collection for each dam, we see blatant gaps in the available information.
In our practice of quantitative risk assessment for large infrastructural portfolios, we are confronted with this information gap. The new Global Industry Standard on Tailings Management (GISTM) code addresses this gap to a certain extent, but only in very generic terms, and aims at promoting communication.
There are Ways Around this Information Gap, but no Panacea
Dam risks informational gap can be addressed using various approaches, such as computer facilitated document analyses, satellite observation, IoT, big data and artificial intelligence. Each approach has in some benefits, but some, especially if poorly applied, may be ineffective or even counterproductive.
Finally, risk communication has to be fostered. This requires an effort to educate, as technical risks have to be properly conveyed to the public, in such a manner they can be understood and evaluated.
In our practice, we use specific and pertinent benchmarks to anchor this communication to historical reality.
Closing Remarks on Dam Risks Informational Gap
The image of infrastructural problems, like dam failures, tends to be that they are isolated engineering problems, but in reality they constitute a global “informational conundrum.”
Thus, we formulate a number of remarks:
- No human activity can exist without risks; rather, we must properly evaluate and prioritize dam risks in order to develop sustainable and ethically acceptable mitigation policies and plans.
- Neither a dam-per-dam engineering approach nor new technologies alone can solve the problem we are facing.
- We need reasonable, sustainable blended approaches deployed large scale to cope with the challenges that climate change will inevitably amplify.
- Methodologies exist, but they are seldom applied in a consistent manner.
- Political and corporate will are burgeoning under media and public pressure.
