2021 – Common Ground – Baselining Consequence Assessments in downstream catchments

Rachel Jensen, Adam Broit, Chriselyn Kavanagh

Downstream emergency response is a critical driver in the consequences and potential life loss associated with dam flooding and failure. This response is highly varied between stakeholders, communities and the nature of the flooding or dam threat. As assessments on dam failure consequence and potential loss of life become increasingly important in understanding holistic dam risk, they are also becoming increasingly complex.

As part of a portfolio wide Comprehensive Risk Assessments, Sunwater have undertaken workshops with a wide range of stakeholders to better understand downstream emergency response and the warning timeline. The workshops have been aimed at facilitating better downstream stakeholder engagement, obtaining key data for consequence assessments and developing consistency in assumptions for potential life loss.

This paper presents the standardised methodology undertaken for warning time workshops, the outcomes for a range of downstream stakeholders and correlations between stakeholder groups which influence warning time response. These outcomes may be used by practitioners in the absence of catchment specific warning time data and provide a counterpoint to international standard warning time assumptions.