Lessons Learned From Dam Failures

This report examines a number of dam failures and the lessons that can be learned from them. Many comprehensive lists containing hundreds of dam failures have been compiled, including those by ICOLD (1973), USCOLD (1975), USCOLD (1988), and ASDSO (2010). These summaries provide valuable statistics, a comparison of the wide variety of failures that have occurred, and useful data on the trends of dam building and breaking. Others, such as Jansen (1980), have reported in great detail on many historic dam failures. Their in-depth perspectives help the engineering community gain an understanding of the specific circumstances that led to each failure.