Accounting for Climate Change Uncertainty in Long-Term Dam Risk Management

Abstract

This paper presents a practical approach to adaptive management of dam risk based on robust decision-making strategies coupled with estimation of climate scenario probabilities. The proposed methodology, called multi-prior weighted scenarios ranking, consists of a series of steps from risk estimation for current and future situations through definition of the consensus sequence of risk reduction measures to be implemented. This represents a supporting tool for dam owners and safety practitioners in making decisions for managing dams or prioritizing long-term investments using a cost-benefit approach. This methodology is applied to the case study of a Spanish dam under the effects of climate change. Several risk reduction measures are proposed and their impacts are analyzed. The application of the methodology allows for identifying the optimal sequence of implementation measures that overcomes uncertainty from the diversity of available climate scenarios by prioritizing measures that reduce future accumulated risks at lower costs. This work proves that such a methodology helps address uncertainty that arises from multiple climate scenarios while adopting a cost-benefit approach that optimizes economic resources in dam risk management.