[en] New and numerous challenges faced by the the dam safety community and dams were discussed at this conference. Hydraulic resources availability, the durability of the installations, modes of operation and processes, the business environment and human resources in the dam safety community are factors which will influence and impact these challenges. New types of dams have been constructed or are being built. Research is needed and knowledge sharing needs to be promoted to ensure the development of safe and reliable projects. This conference brought together small dam owners and larger utilities looking for the latest in technology developments

[en] The potential impacts of climate change on public infrastructure are currently studied to advance planning and prioritization of adaption strategies. This paper investigated the potential vulnerability of the Claireville and G. Ross Lord dams and reservoirs by considering the projected character, its magnitude and its rate of change in future local climatic conditions, the sensitivity of infrastructure to the changes, and the built-in capacity of the infrastructure to absorb any net negative consequence from the predicted changes in climatic conditions. This study used the public infrastructure engineering vulnerability (PIEV) engineering protocol to study the vulnerabilities of both facilities to current climate, as well as future climate change at the 2050 time horizon. Recommendations were provided for actions to be taken to address the potential vulnerabilities that were identified. The project determined that the two dams have the capacity to withstand the existing and projected future climate.

[en] Climate change is likely to affect extreme flows as well as average flows. This is an important consideration for hydroelectric power producers. This paper presented the development of an approach to assess the impact of climate changes on seasonal and average annual river flows. The main goal was to investigate how climate change will affect the hydroelectric potential of the Lower Churchill Project using different combinations of emissions scenarios, climate model output and downscaling techniques. The setup and calibration of the numerical hydrological model, WATFLOOD, were performed as preliminary work for the Pinus River basin selected as study basin. Downscaled climate data from the North America change assessment program for both current and future climate periods were analysed. The calibrated model was used to simulate the current and future period streamflow scenarios. The results showed a 13 percent increase in mean annual flows concentrated in the winter and spring seasons.

[en] In order to mitigate the detrimental effects that contaminants such as petrochemical and chemical spills may have on the environment it is critical to understand their transport. This paper presented an assessment of travel time for spills management using HEC-RAS water quality analysis on the Credit River Watershed. It is a 1000 km2 area of urban and rural landscapes drained by 90 km of the main Credit River. The study focused on the mixing characteristics of 5 stream reaches in the Credit River watershed. Dye tracing was done under three different flow conditions to obtain a longitudinal dispersion coefficient, which is a necessary parameter for predicting and modelling time concentration curves downstream of a spill. The longitudinal dispersion coefficient was input into the US Army Corp of Engineers, Hydrologic Engineering Centers River Analysis System (HEC RAS) to predict time concentration curves. The HEC RAS model produced average travel time close to those measured in the field after final calibration was completed.

[en] This paper is part of an ongoing research project designed to evaluate the effect of climate change on reservoir operation policies in the Mississippi Valley Conservation Authority. The study used the results from a first paper, including projected daily temperature and precipitation, for future streamflow calculation. This paper presented the development, calibration and validation of a rainfall-runoff NAM model for the Mississippi River watershed. The calibrated Mike11/NAM model was fed with predicted climatic data to generate long term future streamflow in the basin. Forecast flows were run in a Mike 11/HD model to estimate the corresponding lake levels. The storages and flows at Shabomeka Lake, Mazinaw Lake and Marble Lake were simulated. The results showed that climate change is likely to have implications for reservoir operations in the Mississippi River watershed, which will include changed water level regimes due to modifications in the projected future streamflow hydrograph to meet desired lake levels.