Exploring Impacts of Future Climate Change On Dam Flood Risk Across The Western Us

Reclamation operates facilities across the 17 western states that span a range of hydroclimates. The Safety of Dams Act, first implemented in 1978 in response to the failure of Teton Dam, authorized the Department of Interior to operate and maintain Federal Reclamation dams for safety of dam purposes. Reclamation uses risk guidance for decision-making at those facilities, with assessment of probabilistic flood risk being part of that process. Flood risk has typically been determined using past flood data; however, climate change brings uncertainty to the validity of those estimates. Discussions surrounding climate change generally focus on increasing precipitation and temperature, but the associated hydrologic response to those changes is not linear due to complex interactions between changing climate and watershed conditions. In order to better understand changing potential flood risk at facilities across the west under climate chance scenarios, Reclamation is completing a number of different climate change research projects examining potential flooding impacts in different regions and hydroclimates. By completing a variety of projects focused on different scales (basin-specific to west-wide), different hydroclimatic regions, and different approaches, Reclamation is looking to gain insight into the complex interactions between climate change and hydrologic risk at our facilities.