ABSTRACT
Dam safety is crucial to successfully ensure the long-term sustainability and the multiple benefits of a dam project and is the primary condition for its acceptance by civil society.
Dam failures worldwide continue to be too numerous, and the International Commission on Large Dams (ICOLD) has recently issued a “World declaration on Dam Safety” [1] and declared dam safety the highest priority of the organization.
The paper looks into dam safety aspects in different phases of the project life cycle and from different stakeholder perspectives, and analyses dam failure records to understand where gaps can be found for the construction of a new dam or the rehabilitation of an existing dam. The statistics on dam failure clearly indicates where corrective measures have to be taken and drives the authors in formulating a set of recommendations, based on their long experience and complementary expertise, to help dam owners, developers and lenders to better address dam safety in their projects. The authors finally analyse the link between dam safety issues and contractual strategy, in order to propose an enhanced contractual and organisational set-up in dam development.
