Dams are usually built to withstand heavy rainfall or drought.
More than 11,000 people have been killed and tens of thousands are missing following the catastrophic dam collapse in the eastern Libyan city of Derna on 12 September. The dam collapse came after an extreme storm, Storm Daniel, slammed into the north African country. The Conversation Africa’s Moina Spooner asked water resources and engineering expert Nadhir Al-Ansari, who has researched the design and safety of dams, to provide insights into the disaster.
In the Libyan case, I believe that the management of the dam was not good. The engineer responsible for the dam should have made sure the water did not exceed the dam’s upper carrying capacity. When he noticed that a huge volume of water was entering the reservoir he should have released large quantities of water to keep its level lower than the upper limit.
In this case, there must have been a breakdown in communication between meteorological department and engineers managing the dam. Are there emerging technologies or innovations to improve safety? There are a number of models and techniques and each dam has its own model or technique that the designer suggests. Planning for extreme weather events is usually done at the design stage of the dam. The designer is meant to give a thorough report on the stability of the dam against various factors, including weather.
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