The Dam Safety Management Department, established in 2003 according to the reform requirement of national public-service research institutes of the Ministry of Science and Technology and in response to the necessity of dam safety management of China, provides technical support for the Dam Safety Management Centre of MWR. The Dam Safety Academic Group of the Hydraulic Management Committee of the Chinese Hydraulic Engineering Society is operated in the Department.

Areas of Interest:
◆Dam safety management policy, related rules, laws and standards;
◆Dam defect mechanism, safety diagnosis and risk assessment;
◆Dam safety monitoring and digitalization.

Research Missions:
The Department has led or participated in compilation of a series of Laws, Regulations and Standards for dam safety management, such as Rules on Reservoir Dam Safety Management, Registration Method for Reservoir Dams, Reservoir Dam Safety Assessment Method, Technical Codes on Earth and Rock-fill Dam Safety Monitoring and Guidelines for Reservoir Dam Safety Assessment. The Department has also undertaken dozens of national and ministerial research topics, obtained a great deal of innovative results, won several ministerial and provincial awards of scientific progress, and published 3 monographs. The Department has developed national reservoir dam safety information system and dam data bases, with information of over 3,000 large and middle-size reservoirs and over 40,000 small-size reservoirs. It has carried out investigation and analysis of dam breaches of Gouhou Reservoir, Yingde’er Reservoir and other reservoirs, collected overseas and domestic test data of dam breach, and provided bases for further dam breach studies and compilation of reservoir dam emergency plans. It has undertaken review of safety assessment results of Class-3 dams in China.

The Department has completed design, implementation and data analyses of dam safety monitoring systems (inclusive of automatization) for dozens of large and middle-size reservoirs, and developed a series of hardware and software of dam safety automatic monitoring systems, software for compiling and analyzing observation data of earth and rock-fill dams, and management and service systems of hydraulic engineering information. The Department has offered technical services for more than 100 reservoir dams in China regarding dam safety assessment, storage safety appraisal, technical appraisal of final acceptance, and dam defects diagnosis.

Through international cooperation projects with Canada, USA, Australia, and the World Bank, the Department has learned the advanced management concepts, technics and experiences from the developed countries. Technical training of dam safety management and academic exchanges have also been carried out in the Department to improve the safety management level of reservoir dams in China.

Site inspection of the Bayi Reservoir after dam breach in Xinjiang Uigur Autonomous Region
Appraisal meeting of Reservoir Risk Standard Study Program

Research Conditions
The Department has a group of experienced scientific research staff, who are engaged in dam safety management, assessment, risk analysis, test study, research and development of safety monitoring systems, and analysis of observation data, etc. The Department is equipped with advanced facilities, inclusive of inspection and testing apparatus for dam safety monitoring, and optic fiber intelligent measurement system for dam seepage path. By learning international technology, IHSMS-1 MCU (Measurement Control Unit) with independent intellectual property has been developed and successfully applied in dozens of large-scale water conservancy projects.