Dam Owner’s Safety Manual

D. Allen Hughes, P.E.

Course Outline

1. An Approach to Dam Safety
2. Introduction to Dams
3. Hazards, Risks, Failures
4. Developing a Safety Program
5. Inspection Guidelines  
6. Instrumentation and Monitoring Guidelines
7. Maintenance Guidelines
8. Emergency Action Pan Guidelines
9. Operation Guidelines
10. Reducing the Consequences of Dam Failure

This course includes a multiple-choice quiz at the end, which is designed to enhance the understanding of the course materials.

Learning Objective

At the conclusion of this course, the student will have learned or been exposed to the following:

• Urgency for Dam Safety;
• Dam Ownership and Safety;
• The Increasing Complexity of the dam Safety Problem;
• An Approach to Dam Safety;
• The Watershed System;
• Types of Dams;
• Water Retention Ability;
• Release of Water;
• Hazards as Sources of Risk;
• Site-Specific Structural Risks;
• Sources of Dam Failures;
• Objectives of a Safety Program;
• Guidelines for Accessing Existing Conditions;
• Procedural Guidelines – A Source Book;
• Documenting the Safety Program;
• Inspection Guidelines;
• Organizing for Inspections;
• Embankment Dams and Structures;
• Concrete Dams and Structures;
• Spillways;
• Inlets, Outlets, and Drains;
• Reasons for Instrumentation;
• Instrument Types and Usage;
• Frequency of Monitoring;
• Maintenance Priorities;
• Specific Maintenance Items;
• General Maintenance;
• Maintenance Priorities;
• Immediate Maintenance;
• Required Maintenance at Earliest Possible Date;
• Specific Maintenance Items;
• The Emergency Action Plan;
• Identification of Emergency Conditions and Initiation of Emergency Response;
• Guidelines for Emergency Notification;
• Operations Plan Guidelines;
• Schedule of Routine Tasks;
• Record Keeping;
• Supplements to Dam Safety;
• Liability; and
• Measures to Reduce the Consequences of Dam Failure.

Intended Audience

This course is intended for use by engineers, dam owners, maintenance contractors, operators, inspectors, dam safety regulators, consultants and landscape architects.

Benefit to Attendees

Engineers, dam owners, dam safety officials and maintenance contractors will gain an understanding from this course of the benefits of owners becoming more educated about their dams.

Course Introduction

This course is based on the publication, FEMA 145-Dam Safety: An Owner’s Guidance Manual. While the manual is written in layman’s terms, this course can be a very effective tool for engineer’s and dam safety officials to educate dam owners, which can help avoid and prevent some engineering problems with the dams. This manual stresses the importance to the dam owner of the development and active pursuit of a dam safety program.

Course Content

The content of this course is entirely based on FEMA 145-Dam Safety: An Owner’s Guidance Manual.

Dam Owner’s Safety Manual

Please click on the above underlined hypertext to view, download or print the document for your study. Because of the large file size, we recommend that you first save the file to your computer by right clicking the mouse and choosing "Save Target As ...", and then open the file in Adobe Acrobat Reader. If you still experience any difficulty in downloading or opening this file, you may need to close some applications or reboot your computer to free up some memory.

Course Summary

This course demonstrates the basic elements of dam safety. Educating dam owners in dam safety serves to protect them and the public.

Quiz

Once you finish studying the above course content, you need to take a quiz to obtain the PDH credits.

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DISCLAIMER: The materials contained in the online course are not intended as a representation or warranty on the part of PDH Center or any other person/organization named herein. The materials are for general information only. They are not a substitute for competent professional advice. Application of this information to a specific project should be reviewed by a registered architect and/or professional engineer/surveyor. Anyone making use of the information set forth herein does so at their own risk and assumes any and all resulting liability arising therefrom.

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