Risk assessment and management of 26 dams operated by the Duero River Authority in Spain
31 May 2011
Spanish regulations on public hydraulic resources (Reglamento del Dominio Público Hidráulico, RD 2008) gathers the need for considering risk management as a vital element in dam safety, following the example of some of the most developed countries in this field. In this context, the Duero River Authority (DRA) has promoted an ambitious program which complements the state-of-the-art dam safety activities in Spain (Review Reports, Emergency Action Plans, etc.) with risk management. Specifically, a screening analysis has been performed for its system of 26 state-owned dams, followed by a full quantitative analysis on two pilot schemes (Carrión and Pisuerga), and risk analysis is currently being adopted as a tool for the dam safety management of the whole portfolio of DRA dams. This paper deals with the different and concomitant activities being undertaken in order to achieve this goal. These activities include analysis of the Castrovido Dam, which is currently under construction, and integrates the maintenance and conservation contracts in order to provide the basic inputs for potential failure mode analysis (instrumentation, monitoring and surveillance tasks are thus efficiently integrated in the working framework). From the set of aforementioned activities it is expected to obtain, among other results, a deeper knowledge of the portfolio of dams and their behaviour, to characterize the impact of operational activities in terms of risk management, and to integrate a risk-informed supporting tool for decision-making on dams and later on all infrastructures which fall under the responsibility of the DRA.
