During the catastrophic floods, namely those in July 1997 and August 2002 and also during local flood events, which occur almost every year in the Czech Republic, more than 100 failures of small dams were identified during last decade. After careful analysis of typical small dam failures, the reasons for dam collapses were found and assessed. During the flood events the most frequent failure of small dams was by breaching due to dam overtopping. The majority of small dam spillways suffer from insufficient capacity, inconvenient structure and arrangement. At some places spillways were blocked by broken gates, clogged jammed racks or floating debris. Moreover, in some cases the bottom outlets were not maintained and out of order. In the paper, several examples of unsuitable spillways and other dam appurtenances are shown.

  • Introduction

  • Basic Data

  • Analysis of the Failures of the Small Dams

  • Conclusions

  • References

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