Climate change and hydrological dam safety: a stochastic methodology based on climate projections

Abstract

Climate change will likely increase the frequency and magnitude of extreme precipitation events and floods, increasing design peak flows that could lead to underestimates in current spillway capacity. Therefore, new methodologies for hydrological dam safety assessment considering climate change are required. This study presents a methodology that considers the impact of climate change on both inflow hydrographs and initial reservoir water levels. Moreover, the uncertainty in the procedure is assessed. The methodology is applied to the Eugui Dam in the River Arga catchment (Spain). An ensemble of 12 climate models is used. The results show an increase in the maximum reservoir water level during flood events and in the overtopping probability in the Representative Concentration Pathway 8.5 (RCP 8.5 scenario), especially in the 2071–2100 time window. The proposed methodology can be useful to assess future hydrological dam safety, fulfilling the requirements of recent regulations to consider the impact of climate change on dams.