Dam Failure Lesson Learned: The first filling of a reservoir should be planned, controlled, and monitored

DamFailures.Org is an ASDSO project that provides individual dam failure case studies and lessons learned as a resource for dam safety engineers, dam operators, owners, regulators, managers, academia and students to help prevent future incidents.

The initial filling of a reservoir is the first test that the dam will perform the function for which it was designed. A carefully managed first filling is crucial to the future success of a dam. According to a study completed by the Bureau of Reclamation on internal erosion failure modes, “approximately two-thirds of all failures and one-half of all dam incidents occur on first filling or in the first 5 years of reservoir operation.” ¹