ABSTRACT
There are a number of cases where earthquakes were triggered by the reservoir. The main prerequisites for reservoir-triggered seismicity (RTS) are the presence of an active fault in the reservoir region, or existence of faults with high tectonic stresses close to failure. The filling of the reservoir in a tectonically active region may merely cause the triggering of an earthquake which in any case would occur at a later date. The occurrence of RTS has been mainly observed in reservoirs with a depth exceeding 100 m. Six events with Richter magnitudes of more than 5.7 have been observed up to now. If a large dam has been designed according to the current state-of-practice, which requires that the dam can safely withstand the ground motions caused by an extreme earthquake, it can also withstand the effects of the largest reservoir-triggered earthquake.
