A step change in reservoir safety management: Quantitative Risk Assessment and its strategic implications

Quantitative risk assessment (QRA) techniques now provide the ability to make meaningful estimates of the probability of failure, its consequences and thus the risk (probability x consequences) of dam failure. This has the potential to provide a major, step, improvement in reservoir safety management in UK. This paper describes the areas where QRA may be applied, the issues on which a strategy for use of QRA on dams needs to be developed and agreed within the UK reservoir engineering community, together with the requirements of the tools for the QRA.

• SYNOPSIS

• INTRODUCTION

• WHAT IS THE PURPOSE OF QUANTITATIVE RISK ASSESSMENT?

• WHAT IS A TOLERABLE LEVEL OF RESIDUAL RISK?

• HOW SHOULD ENGINEERS DECIDE WHEN A DAM IS SAFE ENOUGH?

• HOW IS THE ADEQUACY OF SAFETY EVALUATED IN OTHER INDUSTRIES?

• DISCUSSION – NEED FOR A UK STRATEGY FOR RESERVOIRS

• CONCLUSIONS

• REFERENCES