Whether for flood control, water supply, or recreation, dams play an important role in serving the community and managing a natural resource, but there are hazards and risks to consider when large volumes of water are stored. Sharing information about dams during a flood mapping study can help stakeholders obtain a more complete picture of the risks within a floodplain.
Decision Support System for Water Infrastructure Security Human Consequence Module (DSS-WISETM HCOM) is an analytical module for automated assessment of the human consequences of dam-break floods. The National Center for Computational Hydroscience and Engineering (NCCHE) and the University of Mississippi developed the module with funding provided by the U.S. Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) through a contract with Argonne National Laboratory.
DSS-WISE Lite is a web-based, automated two-dimensional dam-break flood modeling and mapping capability developed by the National Center for Computational Hydroscience and Engineering (NCCHE), the University of Mississippi. The development of the web-based tool and its operation and maintenance is supported by the U.S. Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA).
Secure, web-based graphical user interface and map server providing analytical capabilities and a decision support system for dam/levee security.
The development of the geotechnical risk model for the Chuquicamata mine started in 2005 and included the safety and economic impacts of slope failures at different scales (Tapia et al. 2007; Steffen et al. 2008). The model has been updated recently to include a quantitative evaluation of large economic impacts derived from inter-ramp and overall slope failures using a probabilistic approach (Contreras 2015). This paper describes how the later component of the model was used as a tool for the evaluation of four closure alternatives for the open pit. The methodology included three main tasks: 2. Evaluation of the consequences of slope failure associated with economic losses derived from impacts on production and costs. 3. Generation of risk maps to compare several closure alternatives. The results of these analyses provided information on magnitude of impacts and their likelihood for the four closure alternatives evaluated. The evaluation of these results facilitated the selection of the appropriate closure alternative considering the mine reference criteria for economic risk.
Ground motion over mine sites, while an everyday occurrence, may represent hazards that need to be identified and monitored over time. An accurate and regularly updated overview of surface movement over mining operations is therefore critical as part of an ongoing risk assessment program. By having a complete picture of ground stability, movement patterns which represent potential geotechnical hazards to safety and mine operations can be identified and tracked over time. From routine monitoring to highfrequency updates, interferometric synthetic aperture radar (InSAR) technology is increasingly being used to identify a wide range of movement patterns which may be of concern to mine operators and geotechnical engineers. Recent advances in radar image processing algorithms, combined with an increase in the number of satellite systems launched into orbit, have resulted in improvements in the ability of this technology to capture complex and rapid displacement. In particular, the ability to characterise rapid and sudden motion (metres of movement) has increased the utility of InSAR from a practical standpoint in characterising geotechnical hazards. Further exploitation of 2D monitoring approaches in capturing vertical and horizontal movement, particularly for producing displacement vectors along cross sections, can also provide additional insights into hazard characterisation. Key differences between the ability of highresolution imagery to capture complex and rapid deformation in comparison to low-resolution (but freely available) Sentinel imagery are also touched upon. This paper will focus on the practical application of InSAR technology to monitor mine sites around the world, illustrating how new processing approaches and data sources are used in the identification of geomechanical risks that are typically of greatest concern from both an operational and safety standpoint. Examples of results over an active mine site will be shared and a particular emphasis will be placed on selecting the right InSAR tool for helping geotechnical engineers best manage risk due to movement.
The purpose of this document is to provide dam safety professionals with guidance on how to prepare dam breach inundation modeling studies and conduct mapping that can be used for multiple purposes, including dam safety, hazard mitigation, consequence evaluation, and emergency management including developing emergency action plans. This guidance is intended to provide a consistent approach that can be applied across the country.
As one of the cornerstones of the U.S. Geological Surveys (USGS) National Geospatial Program, The National Map is a collaborative effort among the USGS and other Federal, State, and local partners to improve and deliver topographic information for the Nation. The National Map is featuring direct links to new and improved GIS data access utilities on a refreshed data delivery homepage at https://www.usgs.gov/NationalMap/data. From the homepage, users can now quickly access topographical map products, GIS data, and the full suite of The National Maps applications and visualization services.
?Chile produces large amounts of tailings daily which must be safely disposed on the earths surface. There are a series of strategies that have been successfully used in our country to store tailings, among them are thickened and paste tailings. Paste tailings are an advantageous technique that allows for greater recovery of water while improving physical stability of the structure. Although challenges are faced worldwide when large production rates are tried to be thickened, the technique seems promising for countries like Chile where there is an ongoing water crisis. The stability of paste tailings facilities is highly influenced by water content or saturation. As consolidation occurs the tailings loses water. However, as the evaporation front takes place, the material goes from a saturated to a non-saturated state. Unsaturated paste has shown improved resistance, e.g. liquefaction resistance almost double when saturation drops below 90%. A well planned facility operation should consider the monitoring of the water content of the paste. However, this is sometimes difficult, due to the large areas that must be controlled and the danger associated with manual moisture measurements in the field. In this context, we proposed the use of hyperspectral cameras to obtain a relationship between the paste moisture content and light reflectance. This would allow to generate moisture surface map and to the use of this data to monitor for instance evaporation rates or water balance in tailings storage facilities. This article summarizes laboratory main findings and proposes a series of procedures to implement the technique in the field.
Component 2 results for the tailings roadmap study. The objective of the report is to define the important tailings reclamation objectives to which successful tailings technologies should contribute. The report presents the results of a number of workshops and studies used to develop the objectives, sub-objectives and indicator criteria to be used to screen and develop the road map for tailings technology implementation.