Abstract: With the development of dam risk management concept, potential failure mode analysis (PFMA) method is becoming more and more widely used. The design of dam safety monitoring based on traditional engineering safety concept lacks pertinence to hidden dangers. Combining failure mode analysis with dam safety monitoring can improve the effectiveness and pertinence of monitoring. In this research, the structural characteristics and common diseases of concrete face rockfill dam are studied, and the possible failure modes of concrete face rockfill dam are proposed by use of PFMA method, and the monitoring items and key parts under each failure mode are analyzed. Improvement measures for concrete face rockfill dam monitoring system are put forward with a view to the PFMA method. The results show that the dam safety monitoring based on the analysis of potential failure mode has strong pertinence and can improve the monitoring efficiency and reliability.