Environmental criteria for improving dams safety

Resumo

In view of the magnitude of a dam, the damage caused by some failure or rupture causes a great impact, which can result in socioeconomic and environmental losses, and also in loss of human lives. In Brazil, the law nº. 12,334 was approved in 2010, which establishes the National Dams Security Policy and the National Information System on Dam Safety - SNISB, in order to monitor and guarantee the safety of dams. In addition to legislation, it is essential to have tools that assist in the evaluation of the conditions of the structures, and that allow the owner, responsible engineers and oversight agencies to make decisions, in order to avoid or at least minimize the occurrence of failures. One of the tools that can be used is the Safety Index of Dams (ISB), proposed by Zuffo (2005) and modified by Aguiar (2014). The ISB allows a global view of the safety status of the dam, being a useful tool of easy application. However, the ISB was determined considering only technological (or engineering) criteria. Thus, this research aims to propose criteria related to environmental factors that must be considered to evaluate the safety of a dam.