Water Management 2009: Hydropower Optimization Modelling - Valued Decision Making
November 19 - 20, 2009 - Atlanta, GA

Many challenges, often with opposing goals, are presented to hydroelectric generation water managers. These often require sophisticated information systems to support their decision-making activities. Optimization modelling, when properly designed, can assist water managers to compile useful information from raw data, documents, personal knowledge, and models to identify and solve problems and make decisions.

Typical information water management applications might gather and present would include: meteorology, hydrology, geology, topography, channel hydraulics, environmental attributes, economics, water use activities or requirements, regulatory requirements, operating limits, etc.

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Tour of Brookfield Power
April 29, 2009 - 480 de la Cité Boulevard Gatineau, Québec

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Case Studies: Learning from International Dam Incidents and Failures
March 24 - 25, 2009 - Los Angeles, CA

Most dam failures are not the result of extreme loading conditions. Rather, dams typically fail due to unforeseen or unrecognized conditions that result in piping failures, overtopping at less than the design inflow, foundation failures, errors in operation, or other "non-standard" failure modes.

Managing the risk of owning and operating dams requires the best available knowledge on both potential failure modes and the associated consequences. It is imperative that dam owners, dam regulators and consulting engineers are familiar with the typically analyzed failure modes as well as those that occur for non-standard reasons. The retirement of experienced dam engineers and the world-wide trend towards less dam construction leaves today’s dam safety professionals with fewer opportunities to gain the experience necessary to adequately assess the risks posed by dams and to protect the public from the consequences of a dam failure.

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