Reclamation’s Design Process of Early Warning Systems for Dam Safety

This paper discusses the Bureau of Reclamation’s process for designing the detection and decisionmaking components of an Early Warning System (EWS) for dams with hydrologic deficiencies. The design of an EWS is a site-specific activity, with the final goal of the system being the successful evacuation of the population at risk located downstream of the dam. EWS designs consider meteorological and hydrological data in developing flood detection and decisionmaking elements of the system.