2015 Poster – Rowallan Dam: management of flood risk during a major dam upgrade

Kim Robinson, Andrew Pattle and Thomas Shurvell

Rowallan Dam is a 43m high clay core rock fill dam located in Northern Tasmania. The dam impounds 121GL used for hydro power generation and has a High A consequence category.
Over the summer of 2014/15 major reconstruction works were carried out on the dam to repair a piping incident from 1968. The work entailed reconstructing two sections of the dam down to foundation level and the upper 7m of the 568m dam crest. During the work, the dam was temporarily exposed to a significantly increased flood overtopping risk.
A range of measures were taken to manage the overtopping risk; such as increasing the dewatering capacity of the dam, lake draw down, installation of a sheetpile wall, development of emergency backfill procedures and a flood forecasting system.
The focus of this paper is on the flood forecasting system and how this was integrated into the overall management of overtopping risk during construction. The forecast models were run automatically on a 2 hour schedule using the latest BoM forecast, telemetered lake levels and rainfall from 7 gauges surrounding the catchment. The system provided a continuous 7 day lake level forecast which guided the site team on when to release water to manage the storage.
In the event that the lake level forecast reached a predetermined trigger level, the dam safety team would have been automatically notified and various emergency procedures would have been triggered in response to the flood warning.
This paper discusses the measures that were taken to manage the flood risk, how it worked in practice and conclusions which are applicable more generally to managing overtopping risk during dam works.
Keywords: dam construction flood risk, flood forecasting

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