Recent earth-filled dam failures or accidents of reservoirs in China and their enlightenment

Affected by extreme weathers, dam failures and accidents occurred in recent years, and some regularity trend is gradually clear. Some new phenomena and new directions such as the excessive flood impact, earth-rock dam overtopping with not collapse, emergency response mechanism and so on should be studied deeply. It is necessary to analyze and study the latest dam-break and escape cases. This paper summarizes experience and draws lessons from flood control standards, monitoring and early warning, emergency response and emergency treatment, and puts forward some enlightenments in reservoir dam safety management and flood control, and further puts forward thoughts and suggestions on strengthening dam failure risk prevention and control. Conclusion: quickly lowering water level is the key to deal with the excessive flood; earth dam can be overtopped without collapse; earth and rockfill dam structure design should give full consideration to the extreme working condition of strong rainfall; it is necessary to strengthen the flood control capacity for river cascade reservoirs; management facilities have a great influence on emergency response ability; and low-level management influences the flood control safety significantly.