Dams safety: an analysis of safety management and the difficulties of its supervision

Abstract

Despite the notable benefits that dams bring to society, they involve immediate and potential risks and impacts, which makes dam safety extremely important. This narrative review paper compares dam safety concepts, including that established in the Brazilian National Dam Safety Policy – PNSB, as well as analyzes the supervision difficulties reported by Brazilian federal and state agencies. Several national and international institutions define dam safety, but considering those presented in this paper, convergency was found out regarding the concept of maintaining structural integrity and operational safety in order to preserve life, health, property and environment. Dams in Brazil are inspected by several public bodies, depending on their priority use and the domain of the body of water in which they are located, each with prerogatives to regulate the matter. In view of the significant increase in the amount of accidents and incidents in 2019 and 2020, it is clear that there is a vulnerability to be corrected in the safety management of Brazilian dams due to their dependence on the treatment of deficient or non-existent technical information and on a lack of specialized staff in dam safety for inspection activities.