Dam safety technical resources

Last updated on September 17, 2024

These categorized documents, templates and links provide helpful information and guidance for dam owners and operators and their consultants when designing new dams, undertaking inspections, maintenance and surveillance, or assessing deficiencies at an existing dam. 

On this page

Design, construction, and decommissioning guidelines

Operations, inspection and maintenance

Dam emergency planning

Dam safety review

Hazards and Failure Modes Analysis (HFMM)

Dam hydrologic loading estimation

EGBC Practice Advisory on determining dam hydrological loading

Engineers and Geoscientists BC (EGBC) issued a practice advisory in 2022 for registrants who provide service related to dam hydrological loading. This Practice Advisory on Dam Hydrological Loading (PDF, 185KB) provides information to develop dam hydrological loading estimates.

B.C. Extreme Flood Project

The B.C. Extreme Flood Project supplements available hydrology and hydrometeorological information. The guidance documents and project deliverables are useful for the design of dams, spillways, dikes, and stream crossings.

These include the:

  • B.C. Regional Flood Frequency Analysis Portal that shows locations of hydrometric stations and corresponding drainage areas analyzed to estimate peak flow events
  • MetPortal that hosts Probable Maximum Precipitation (PMP) data along with spatial and temporal patterns of Probable Maximum Storms (PMS) across the province

Previous outdated PMF Guidance

The previous guidance for generating Probable Maximum Floods (PMF) in British Columbia is no longer recommended. The 2010 PMF Estimator for BC (3.8MB) report is for reference only. It should only be used to provide a preliminary estimate of PMFs or as a rough check on detailed PMF analyses.

Additional resources

Contact information

For general questions or comments about dam safety, please email us at Dam.Safety@gov.bc.ca.