A review of international approaches to risk assessments in dam engineering

An important element of reporting the results of risk assessments is portraying the risks in such a way as to establish whether risk reduction measures would be required or not. This could be for a particular dam but also, in the case of an inventory of dams, how works could be prioritized. This paper looks at a number of methods used to portray the results of risk assessments, how these relate to particular guidelines in terms of tolerability of risk, and to establish whether potential risk reduction measures can be justified from a cost benefit perspective. The author proposes a potential classification of UK dams in the context of risk.