Risk evaluation of domino effect of dam failures on small river-basins

Abstract

Floods in 2002 pointed out on very sensitive problem of domino effect of small historical dam failures situated close to each other (in cascade), namely if the most significant dam is situated as the first one. The practical example of domino effect, which was observed during these floods, raised the attention to this type of failure. Firstly on the selection of river basins where the potential to the domino effect is very high and secondly on the detailed evaluation of the potential flood wave propagation below failed dam together with the impact of this wave on residential area and critical infrastructure. Therefore the paper focuses on detailed description of the practical case, on the evaluation of the limit state of failure, on the methods of dam reconstruction and finally on the evaluation of the domino effect of failure potential.