Reservoir dam safety incident reports

How to notify a dam safety incident at your reservoir and report your findings.

Tell us about dam safety incidents at your reservoir

If you own or manage a large raised reservoir capable of holding 10,000 cubic metres of water, you must respond to incidents and tell us about them if:

• the reservoir has an uncontrolled or unintentional release of water
• you took measures to stop an uncontrolled release of water from happening or from getting worse
• there is any damage to the site

Your first priority is to respond to the incident:

• follow your flood plan to respond to the incident
• contact your supervising engineer. If you don’t have a supervising engineer, contact an inspecting engineer
• act on the advice of your engineers
• provide a report, within 12 months, on the causes of the incident
  
  

What a reservoir incident is

An incident is an unplanned event, action, omission, failing or other condition which resulted in any of the following:

• an uncontrolled release of water
• an unintentional release of water
• damage to the site

This could include:

• a failure or partial failure of any water retaining structure
• an unplanned event which resulted in one or more of the following:
  • damage to the reservoir structure which may affect its safety
  • an unintentional release of water resulting in negative impacts downstream such as flooding or physical damage
  • emergency or precautionary measures being taken to stop the event worsening

Examples include:

• leakage and seepage – especially if new or changed
• dam overflowing outside of engineered channels when it is not designed to do so
• wave overtopping causing damage to the crest or slope
• landslide or movement of slopes in the dam or around reservoir basin
• material failure of reservoir structures
• human or procedural error
• failure of automated systems
• vandalism
• unexpected instrumentation readings
• pipe, tunnel or valve failure, even if no water is released
• full or partial failure of the dam, embankment or wall causing an uncontrolled release of some or all of the water from your reservoir

If you are carrying out planned maintenance work, you should not record these as incidents.

An incident does not need to be an emergency and the problem may develop slowly allowing enough time for you to respond to the situation.

Report a near miss

Other events which do not result in an uncontrolled or unintentional release of water or damage to the site but could have done if allowed to develop, should be reported as a near miss. You should send us a report of any near misses.

Submit a preliminary report

You must send us a preliminary report as soon as practicable if the incident or near miss occurred at a:

• large raised reservoir with a capacity of 10,000 cubic metres or more

You should also send reports of incidents and near misses at similar structures such as:

• small reservoirs
• canals
• flood embankments
• any other water control structures
  
  

Submit a final report

Once we receive your preliminary report, we will send you a final report form. You must complete your final report within one year of the incident occurring.

You may find it helpful to work on your report with a qualified civil engineer.
We will use your final report to identify any lessons learned, helping us to prevent similar incidents at other reservoirs.

Investigate the causes of the incident

You should investigate the root cause of the incident as soon as possible. Ask your engineers about areas to focus on, and check any assumptions made during the incident. You should use the final report form to guide your investigation.

Once you have identified the root cause, you can start to make changes to prevent it re-occurring. You should look for improvements which promote a sustainable, higher level of safety protection.
Reservoirs are artificial structures and deficiencies are often rooted to a human factor. You should make an honest assessment of “what” caused the incident, not “who was at fault.”

Contact us

If you are unsure if you need to report your incident, contact us and we can help you.