Hydrological safety of small dams with climate change

The occurrence of large floods has increased, contributing to the failure of numerous small dams in Burkina Faso and the Sahelian zone of Africa. Usually, the small reservoirs created by these dams are the only water sources available during the dry season for many villages. Standard approaches for managing large dams do not apply to these small structures, and the purpose of the paper is to review appropriate approaches for selecting the design and flood risks of these dams, and to propose low cost solutions for improving their hydrological safety.