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Emergency Preparedness for Dam Failures – Developments and Challenges in

A. Engström Meyer & M. Bartsch Svenska kraftnät, Sweden

ABSTRACT In 2014 Svenska kraftnät (the Swedish National Grid) was given an assignment by the Government to identify needs and prepare an action plan to further stimulate the development of coordinated emergency preparedness for dam failures in Sweden. Svenska kraftnät, together with representatives from the hydropower industry, the county administrative boards, the rescue services and other involved actors, have identified several areas for development. Main points in the action plan include to: • Develop coordinated emergency preparedness planning in midsize hydropower rivers, using the same method as developed for the large hydropower rivers. • Enhance the societal actors’ knowledge about consequences of dam failure, forming the basis for the county administrative boards’, the rescue services’ and other government agencies’ emergency preparedness planning. • Provide basic dam safety courses for personnel at societal actors with a role to act in case of a dam failure occurring. • Develop a “tool box” with exercise methods for dam owner organizations, and to use it for training of how to handle serious problems at the dam facilities. • Ensure national collaboration and knowledge exchange between concerned actors and geographical areas. • Ensure effective and reliable alarm routines from dam owners to concerned societal actors. • Develop and launch routines and methods to warn the public if a dam failure should occur. • Inform the public in the inundation area about risks of flooding and what to do in case of a dam failure. This paper describes the current situation and Svenska kraftnäts action plan.

INTRODUCTION In 2014 Svenska kraftnät (the Swedish National Grid) was given an assignment by the Government to identify needs and prepare an action plan to further stimulate the development of coordinated emergency preparedness for dam failures. Svenska kraftnät has the function as a national authority for dam safety. The overall task is to promote dam safety in Sweden, which includes stimulating capacity building, research and development, acting to reduce the risk of severe strain on society related to dam failure or floods in regulated rivers, and to provide supervisory guidance to the regulatory authority (the county administrative boards). The assignment was carried out with the assistance of the Swedish Civil Contingencies Agency and in dialogue with responsible actors. The assignment was reported to the Government in March 2015.

In Sweden there are approximately 10,000 dams of varying size and age. More than 200 of the dams in the country are higher than 15 m and three dams are higher than 100 m. Eight of the reservoirs impound volumes larger than one billion m3. There are more than 220 dams where a dam failure could lead to major local and regional impact or interference or national crisis that affects many people and large sections of society and threatens the fundamental values and functions. Most of these are hydropower dams but there are also some large tailings dams. The dam facilities are scattered over the country, located in 17 of the 21 counties, see figure 1. In the action plan Svenska Kraftnät has put the focus on stimulating the development of coordinated emergency preparedness for these high hazard dams.

The ongoing development of emergency preparedness planning for high hazard dams in Sweden is much influenced by a model that was developed in a pilot project 2003-2005. The pilot project was jointly undertaken by Svenska kraftnät, the county administrative boards, municipalities, Water Regulation Enterprises and dam owners. The aim of the pilot study was to create a model for the step-by-step development of emergency preparedness planning for dam failures in the major hydropower rivers. A working model was developed and tested for the River Ljusnan, including all major hydropower dams in the same project (Elforsk, 2006).

The pilot project has been used as a model for the development of emergency preparedness planning for the remaining nine major hydropower rivers. Similar project have recently started and is ongoing also for some midsize Hydropower'15

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regulated rivers. All in all more than 70 % of the 220 dams where a dam failure could lead to serious consequences are located in rivers where emergency preparedness planning project have started. The action plan has been based on the knowledge that these projects are ongoing and is focused on how emergency preparedness for dam failures can be further stimulated.

Lule River

Skellefte River

Ume River

Ångerman River

Indals River

Ljungan River

Ljusnan River

Dal River

Klar River

Göta River

Figure 1 The 220 high hazard dams, the ten large hydropower rivers and the 21 counties in Sweden.

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OVERALL VISION AND TARGET ACTORS In the assignment an overall vision for emergency preparedness for dam failures in Sweden has been prepared: The public is assured that societal actors and dam owners take their responsibility for preventing and handling dam failures that could cause national or regional crisis.

The public should feel secure, both that dam owners take their responsibilities regarding the prevention of dam failures, and that dam owners and societal actors are prepared to handle a dam failure. A dam failure can cause consequences of varying importance from a societal point of view, depending on factors such as impounded water volume, dam height, the dam's location in relation to housing, critical infrastructure, etc. The actors preparedness should be adapted to the potential consequences, the greater the impact, the greater the need for collaboration between actors and information and warning to the public.

In the assignment Svenska kraftnät aims to outline an action plan with the actions that need to be taken to create conditions for a well-functioning and efficient emergency preparedness for dam failures for high hazard dams (dams where failures can cause consequences with high or very high importance from a societal point of view). I.e. for the more than 200 dams where a dam failure could lead to major local and regional impact or interference or national crisis that affects many people and large sections of society and threatens the fundamental values and functions. These are dams in dam safety classes A and B according to the Environmental Code and dams that constitute dangerous activities under the Civil Protection Act.

The target actors for the action plan include: • Owners of dams as above • Societal actors such as municipalities and county administrative boards that have dams as above within their geographic areas. • Societal actors whose geographical area or responsibilities may be affected by the inundation following a dam failure. These are municipalities including the local emergency services, county administrative boards, county councils and government agencies with special responsibility for emergency preparedness. Svenska kraftnät (The Swedish National Grid), the Swedish Transport Administrative, the Swedish Post and Telecom Authority, the Swedish Civil Contingencies Agency are some of the agencies with special responsibilities for civil contingency and emergency preparedness.

Dam owners are responsible for dam safety, and have strict liability for consequences of dam failure, under the Environmental Code and associated regulations. Owners of dams that are ‘dangerous activities’ according to the Civil Protection Act also have obligations regarding civil contingency and preparedness for accidents such as dam failures according to that regulation.

For the societal actors there are certain legal requirements on civil contingency and emergency preparedness. The responsibility for municipalities, county councils and county administration boards concerns a specific geographical area. The responsibility for the governmental agencies regards their designated authority function, for example regarding electricity supply or transportation infrastructure.

River groups constitute regional, informal networks for regulated rivers, linking organizations involved in or affected by water regulation and floods. The main participants are the county administrative boards, municipalities, water regulating enterprises, dam owners, emergency service centres, the Transportation Administration, the Swedish Meteorological and Hydrological Institute etc. The river groups constitute important fora for regional coordination, information exchange and competence in respect of floods, dam safety and emergency preparedness.

DEVELOPMENT AREAS In October 2014 Svenska Kraftnät hosted a workshop with the theme "Emergency preparedness for dam failures - Target 2025". The purpose of the workshop was that responsible actors jointly should define target images for emergency preparedness for dam failures and discuss development areas, estimate the present situation and identify what efforts to be made and what challenges exist. The aim was to focus on topics that are specific to emergency preparedness for dam failures (and not emergency preparedness in general. The intention with the workshop was to reach a consensus regarding what needs to be done in the future to stimulate the development. All together more than 30 representatives of dam owners in the power industry and societal actors attended the workshop.

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Nine development areas have been identified, see Figure 2. For each development area a target image has been prepared. The development areas have been grouped into three main groups: • Collaboration and knowledge transfer. This group involves supporting the involved actors with collaboration fora, education, training, information exchange and provision of inundation maps etc as a basis for developing their emergency action planning and knowledge of dam safety in general. • Dam owners’ contingency management. This group is about the dam owners’ resources and routines for detecting and handling serious problems at the dam facility and, if necessary, alerting the societal actors. • Emergency preparedness management. This group covers all involved actors’ routines to handle the consequences of a dam failure, including information and warnings to the public.

Group Development areas Target image Assessment of current situation on a scale 0-5 (0-no development, 5-target image reached) Cooperation and Cooperation fora are used for regular 2 exchange of experience interaction and exchange of experiences

between stakeholders at the national and the regional level. Lessons learned from past events and exercises are spread. Basis for coordinated Inundation maps for coordinated emergency 0-4 emergency planning planning are prepared in collaboration between stakeholders for regulated rivers where the dam failures can cause national or knowledge transfer knowledge regional consequences. Knowledge of the Societal actors have knowledge of objects 0-3 consequences of dam that can be flooded by dam failure in their failure geographic area or responsibility segment Knowledge of dam safety, Prerequisites are taken so that societal actors 1-2 water management and and dam owners can obtain basic knowledge crisis preparedness in areas other than their own main fields of Collaboration and and Collaboration expertise Dam owners’ Procedures and resources for the 3 preparedness for major management of serious problems that can

problems and dam lead to dam failure are included in the failures owner's systematic safety management. Dam owners exercise the management of serious owners’ problems regularly. Dam owners’ alert to Procedures for alerting societal actors are 2 Dam c ontingency management societal actors working well and are tested regularly. Societal actors Societal actors have emergency plans that 0-3 preparedness for dam are based on analyses of dam failure failures consequences. The plans are coordinated and practiced regularly. Warning to the public in Procedures and methods to warn the public 1-2 case of dam failures that would be in danger by a dam failure are implemented. Information to the public General and area-specific information about 1-4 dam failures and what the affected public ment

e should do in the event of a dam failure is on societal actors’ websites. In addition,

anag information that can be distributed in the Emergency preparedness preparedness Emergency m event of dam failure has been prepared.

Figure 2 Development areas, target images and assessments of current situation

At the workshop an assessment of the current situation for the nine identified development areas in relation to the defined target image was made. The assessments were made on a scale 0-5, where zero means that no development has started and five means that the target image is reached, se Figure 2. Where the assessment is defined as a range there is a variation between geographical areas and responsible actors. To sum up the current situation, the development of emergency preparedness for dam failures has started but there are still many things that have to be done before the target images are reached.

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At the workshop, all participants indicated which development areas they considered to be most relevant and important. The conclusion was that all development areas were relevant and important but the development areas prioritized by most participants were: • Cooperation and exchange of experience • Knowledge of the consequences of dam failure • Alerting societal actors • Warning to the public in case of dam failures

ACTION PLAN 2015-2020 After the workshop Svenska kraftnät found that already in 2020 the development towards the target images will have come far, and has therefore decided that the action plan will cover the period 2015-2020. In 2020 a review of where we stand in relation to the target images will be carried out as a base for a new action plan for 2021-2025. The intention is that emergency preparedness for dam failures in Sweden should be raised to the level that is presented in the overall vision and the target images.

The action plan includes a total of 23 activities to be conducted during 2015-2020. The activities are either general or river specific, and have varying intensity over the time period for different parts of the country.

Most of the general activities will be initiated and/or carried out by Svenska kraftnät. One of the first activities to be carried out in 2015 is to establish a national coordination group. The coordination group will be a support for Svenska kraftnät to reach out to the large number of involved actors with information about the action plan. The coordination group will also act as a link to the different networks in the country, assist in the establishment of working groups that will carry out some of the activities and support Svenska kraftnät with the following up of the activities.

The river specific activities will be planned by the county administrative boards responsible for the coordination of the ongoing projects for emergency preparedness planning for dam failures in the major regulated rivers. Svenska kraftnät will prepare a checklist to be used for the inventory of the current situation on a regional level. The inventory will be carried out during 2015 and time plans for the remaining activities will be prepared for each river. As emergency preparedness planning for dam failures are at different stages in different parts of the country, several of the activities are to be implemented at different times for each river. Monitoring of the implementation of the activities of the action plan therefore becomes important, and can be regarded as an activity in itself.

In order to pursue continuous development, follow up of the activities in the action plan will be done on two levels; regionally and nationally. • The regional follow-up is to done by the county administrative boards. The semi-annual or annual meetings of the river groups should be used to assess and discuss the status of the involved actors’ efforts for each river. The checklist and the time plan for each river will be a support. • National follow-up of both the general and the river specific activities in the national action plan is made by Svenska kraftnät and discussed at meetings with the coordination group.

The activities in the action plan may need to be revised in order to take into account the development of crisis management in general in Sweden and other external changes. At the end of 2017 Svenska kraftnät therefore plans to carry out a comprehensive follow-up of the actors' efforts and, if necessary, adjust and complement the action plan.

Svenska kraftnät will report on developments and performed activities to the Government in the annual reporting on dam safety development.

Main activities in the national action plan are presented in the following three sections.

ACTIVITIES FOR COLLABORATION AND KNOWLEDE TRANSFER The activities for collaboration and knowledge transfer include:

• Coordination group. A coordination group for the implementation of this action plan will be established. The coordination group will work together with river groups and other regional networks. One important task for Hydropower'15

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the coordination group will be to follow up the activities in the national action plan. Other tasks are to make sure that lessons learnt from past events, exercises etc in one river may be given also to actors in other river groups and to discuss existing courses for actors to obtain knowledge transfer.

• Function of river groups. A review of the about 30 river groups’ current ways of collaboration will be carried out. The terms of reference for the river groups will thereafter be described with the aim of unifying the work in the different river groups, but still allow adaptation to local/regional conditions.

• Lessons learned. The Civil Contingencies Agency together with Svenska kraftnät will act to ensure that lessons learned from past events and exercises are compiled and disseminated to relevant stakeholders.

• Inundation maps. Preparation of inundation maps for the development of coordinated emergency planning for additional rivers and updating the existing inundation maps will be carried out when needed. Dam owner are responsible, but may get support from Svenska kraftnät.

• Mapping of risk objects. For the rivers where inundation maps have been created, mapping and identification of objects with societal functions such as water treatment plants, power production plants, transmission stations, bridges, as well as houses and places where people may reside, such as residential buildings, schools, offices, that would be inundated will be carried out. The results will be presented as a “digital interactive map” and in tables (Elforsk 2014), and will be disseminated to dam owners and societal actors, such as county administrative boards and municipalities.

• Water management plans. A number of water regulators will form a working group to discuss if it is possible to effectively manage floods caused by dam failures by planning preventive measures in advance. If this is deemed possible, a pilot study for one river will be carried out in order to develop a method for investigating the conditions for water regulation to avoid or limit consequences. The pilot study will also include how the results of such an investigation can be documented to be useful for the water regulator in case of a dam failure.

• Courses for enhanced knowledge. Dam failures and floods are "rare events". To have an ability to manage dam failures and high flows societal actors need basic knowledge about water management and dam safety. Similarly it is necessary that dam owners have an insight in the societal actors’ emergency preparedness for dam failures and other crises. The coordination group will identify and evaluate existing courses and, if necessary, propose development of new courses or new modules in existing courses. Information about existing courses will be exchanged between the coordination group and relevant networks.

ACTIVITIES FOR DAM OWNERS CONTINGENCY MANAGEMENT The activities for the improvement of dam owners’ contingency management include:

• Dam safety management system. According to the new dam safety regulations in Sweden dam owners should have and work according to a safety management system. Such a management system should among other aspects include a description on how the dam owner works with identification and assessment of risks of serious accidents. Svenska kraftnät has been given the task to prepare regulations and guidelines regarding safety management systems for high hazard dams. Svenska kraftnät will cooperate with the industry organizations SwedEnergy and SveMin in this work. To support the development of dam facility contingency it is of particular importance that the sections dealing with the identification and assessment of risks of serious accidents and planning for emergencies are dealt with in the development project. Information about the regulations and guidelines will be given to dam owners.

• Exercises. An Elforsk development project is ongoing 2014-2015 with the aim of preparing a “toolbox” of exercise methods to train dam owners to handle incidents at dams, and make recommendations on the contents of an exercise program. The findings from the project will be presented during SwedCOLDs spring meeting in 2015. It is envisaged that dam owners thereafter will be stimulated to prepare exercise programs and carry out exercises at a regular basis.

• Routines for alerting societal actors. In 2014 Svenska kraftnät developed national routines for the alerting of societal actors in case of dam failures in cooperation with representatives of dam owners, county administrative Hydropower'15

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boards and the SOS Alarm Centre. The purpose of the alerting routines is to ensure a fast and efficient alert from dam owners to societal actors, especially for dams where dam failures can cause serious accidents in large geographical areas (and therefore involve several different actors in the crisis management). The routines are to be tested and evaluated annually. Information to concerned parties will be given during river group meeting in 2015. Both concerned dam owners and societal actors that may receive alerts are to revise their routines 2015.

ACTIVITIES FOR EMERGENCY PREPAREDNESS MANAGEMENT The activities for the improvement of the societal actors’ emergency preparedness management include:

• Checklist and river specific time plans. Currently projects for coordinated emergency preparedness planning for dam failures have been started in more than ten rivers. At the beginning of such a project an agreement is prepared between the concerned actors where they all agree to prepare emergency action plans based on the jointly prepared inundation maps. Normally coarse time schedules for the projects were also prepared. Many of the projects started more than five years ago and have not been fully finalized yet. The county administrative boards are responsible for the coordination and follow up of the projects. As a help for county administrative boards to follow up the concerned actors emergency preparedness planning a checklist will be prepared. The checklist includes the river specific activities listed in this action plan. Each responsible county administrative board will be encouraged to make a new time plan for the river based on the checklist. The country administrative board will be asked to follow up their time plan annually, and asked to report the status annually to Svenska kraftnät.

• River specific activity – Emergency action plans. Societal actors are to develop their risk and vulnerability assessments and their emergency action plans based on an analysis of dam failure consequences. The development work by the societal actors is to be followed up by the county administrative boards at river group meetings.

• River specific activity – Regional plans for dam failures. In order to coordinate the different actors’ emergency action plans, it is appropriate to draw up regional plans for dam failures where the overall conditions and planning is described. The county administrative boards are responsible the preparation of these regional plans for dam failures.

• River specific activity – Regional collaboration exercises. To test whether the different actors’ emergency action plans are coordinated, it is advisable to carry out regional collaboration exercises. The county administrative boards are responsible for implementing regional collaboration exercises to test the actors’ emergency action plans and their collaboration.

• River specific activity – Information to the public. Municipalities and county administrative boards whose geographic areas would be affected by flooding due to dam failures are to present domain-specific information about dam failures on their websites. Each organization prepares its information and the county administrative board coordinates the work. Coordination should take place between the different municipalities along the river regarding both the content of the information and the time when the public is informed.

• Routines for warning and information to the public. Svenska kraftnät in collaboration with concerned actors develop national routines for warning and informing the public at dam failures. The routines focus on conditions that are specific to dam failures, but use the available warning channels such as radio, TV, sirens and telephone/mobile phone. Areas with immediate hazard are defined and communicated with the SOS Alarm Centre, the responsible actor for delivering the warnings to the public. Additionally, dam owners in collaboration with the rescue services are to investigate how the warning requirement at particular risk areas should be met.

CONCLUSIONS The assignment to prepare a national action plan to further stimulate the development of coordinated emergency preparedness for dam failures in Sweden has resulted in a comprehensive compilation of activities. Many of these activities are ongoing and well-known for a limited number of involved persons, but have not been established firmly and made available in an aggregated format before. The following up of the activities in the plan will be a Hydropower'15

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tool for Svenska Kraftnät to measure the development of emergency preparedness for dam failure, on both a regional and on a national basis.

The workshop that was carried out in October 2014 was an important milestone. The workshop resulted in a consensus regarding the current situation, the target images as well as important actions to improve the status of emergency preparedness further. It is our understanding that this national action plan has broad support among concerned actors.

There are however some challenges with the implementation of the action plan. The challenges are mainly about carrying out all the river specific activities in the action plan for all larger dam facilities in the regulated rivers and in all the geographical areas that may be flooded. Some of the most obvious challenges are listed below:

• Prioritization. Dam failures are very rare events. The activities that are listed in the action plan will compete with other activities as organisations make their management plans. In practise there is often a reluctance to fully commit to preparing for events that have a very low probability of occurring even if they may result in very large consequence. This may lead to difficulties in acquiring enough resources within the responsible organisation to carry out the activities.

• Many involved parties. The more than 200 high consequence dams are scattered over the country. This means that many societal actors will be involved, for instance more than 70 municipalities and 17 county administrative boards. For each dam and regulated river a specific group of actors are involved. For many of the larger rivers, river groups are already formed. However some river groups are more well-organised than other groups and the involvement varies also for the different actors.

• Resources. Each organisation is responsible for their own planning and prioritizations and the activities in this action plan are not binding. Svenska kraftnät has the necessary resources and can plan for the activities in the action plan that Svenska kraftnät is responsible for. But, Svenska kraftnät does not have the mandate to tell other organisations what they should do. Svenska kraftnät will promote the development and facilitate the work by other actors by providing supporting material, and by making courses, appropriate networks and working groups available.

We feel assured that the level of emergency preparedness for dam failures in Sweden will be further improved by 2020. One positive aspect with the preparation of and the future follow up of the action plan is the foreseen enhanced communication between different stakeholders about dam safety in general as well as emergency preparedness and consequences of dam failures.

REFERENCES

Elforsk, 2006. Dammsäkerhet - Beredskapsplanering för dammbrott - Ett pilotprojekt i Ljusnan, Elforsk 05:38

Elforsk, 2014. Dammsäkerhet - Metod för identifiering och kartläggning av objekt som kan påverkas av dammhaveri, Elforsk 14:55