Assessment of overtopping reliability and benefits of a flood detention dam

There is a growing tendency to assess safety levels of existing dams and to design new dams using probabilistic approaches according to project characteristics and site-specific conditions. This study is a probabilistic assessment of the overtopping reliability of a dam, which will be designed for flood detention purpose, and will compute the benefits that can be gained as a result of the implementation of this dam. In a case study, a bivariate flood frequency analysis was carried out using a five-parameter bivariate gamma distribution. A family of joint return period curves relating the runoff peak discharges to the runoff volumes at the dam site was derived. A number of hydrographs were also obtained under a joint return period of 100 years to observe the variation of overtopping tendency. The maximum reservoir elevation and overtopping reliability were determined by performing a probabilistic reservoir routing based on Monte Carlo simulations.