About

The Reservoir Incidents Knowledge Base has been developed collaboratively between the Environment Agency, Natural Resources Wales and the Institution of Civil Engineers.

Its purpose is to share dam safety incidents and near misses at reservoirs that affected or potentially affected the safety of the dams or other water-retaining structures, such as pipes and valves.

Reservoir owners provide the data to their respective reservoir safety regulators. When a reservoir owner reports an incident to the relevant regulator, the information is uploaded as soon as possible to raise awareness.

Identifiable information has been removed, and the reports have been anonymised for security and to encourage transparent sharing of incident information.

You can view the case studies on this website, or you can generate reports to help you use this data for your own research.

What is a reservoir safety incident?

A reservoir safety incident is an unplanned event that results in an uncontrolled or unintentional release of water or damage to the site.

This could include:

• Failure, or partial failure of any dam, wall, embankment, or other water retaining structure, causing an uncontrolled release of water
• An unplanned event which resulted in one or more of the following:
  • Damage to the reservoir structure that may affect its safety
  • An unintentional release of water resulting in negative impacts downstream (flooding or physical damage)
  • Emergency measures being taken to stop the event from worsening

The reporting of near misses is also encouraged. This is defined as:

"An unplanned event which did not result in an uncontrolled or unintentional release of water or damage to the site, due to chance, corrective action, or timely intervention."

Reporting incidents and sharing the lessons learned offers many benefits:

• Improved safety: identifying risks and vulnerabilities helps reduce the risk of future incidents occurring
• Informed decision-making: its purpose is to share dam safety incidents and near misses at reservoirs
• Continuous improvement: analysing what went wrong leads to evolving best practices
• Collaboration: sharing knowledge enhances industry-wide solutions and strategies
• Regulatory compliance: incident reporting ensures adherence to safety standards
• Public trust: transparency builds confidence in operations and safety measures