A team of researchers hailing from all corners of the world has combined their expertise to tackle the increasing risks to key water infrastructure caused by climate change.
In September 2023, in the aftermath of Storm Daniel, Libya was struck by catastrophic flooding that claimed more than 4000 lives.
The collapse of two dams in Derna released 30 million m3 of water, devastating 25 per cent of the city.
Now, in an effort to prevent further disasters, a global team of researchers has come together to address the increased risk of dam failure caused by climate change.
While major water infrastructure is often unseen by the majority, it plays a crucial role. Without it, sustaining Australia’s expansive population would be impossible.
“We are dealing with a problem that is more and more real, but is not [yet] in our faces,” said Professor Ashish Sharma, Professor of Hydrology and Water Resources at UNSW’s School of Civil and Environmental Engineering. “It is acute but not yet scary. We are building solutions for a climate that will be in place in the year 2100.”
According to the World Health Organisation, 3.6 billion people are already living in places highly susceptible to climate change. With rising temperatures, this number is likely to surge as risks of damage to vital water infrastructure increases.
Sharma and his team of leading researchers – including Professor Rory Nathan (University of Melbourne), Dr Conrad Wasko (University of Melbourne) and Dr Kenneth Kunkel (North Carolina State University) – are acutely aware of the risks, which the infrastructure was not originally designed to withstand.
“This research came about because the industry wanted it,” Sharma told create. “The industry acknowledges climate change is real, and with massive dams sitting above major cities and populations, we need to be sure if we are endangering [people] downstream.”
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In 2022, Sharma co-authored a paper that would later form the basis of a substantial grant from the Australian Research Council (ARC). It argues the importance of constructing new risk assessments in response to climate change, asserting that existing models for potential maximum rainfall are outdated.
According to the research, for every one-degree rise in global temperatures, the atmosphere holds approximately seven per cent more water.
Having presented these findings, Sharma and his team were successful in obtaining a $399,260 ARC grant – the only grant awarded to the field of water resources across Australia.
The distinctiveness of this project is pronounced, as it marks “the first globally [to estimate] the risks to existing dam infrastructure in a warm climate, with the aim of developing strong guidelines”.
“I have a statement in the proposal highlighting that the most valuable infrastructure in terms of the most amount of money invested is water infrastructure,” Sharma explained.
He stresses that the issue lies not with the dams themselves, but with the drastically changing climate.
“These dams have to be designed [so] they don’t fail,” he said. “But unfortunately what has been changing is not the dams but the climate.
“Our aim is to develop well thought-out, clever criteria for designing and redesigning global dams so that the chances of them failing is exactly what has been calculated – and not a surprise case like the one in Derna.
“If we have estimates of the risk, then we can be aware of the consequences of failure and make educated decisions.”
Sharma underscores the essential role of technology in facing up to climate change.
“As technology evolves there are new ways of doing things – new ways of designing infrastructure that buffers water excesses in times of extremes,” he said.
“The impact of these things might be quite small, but collectively, if you’re doing a lot of these things together you can create pathways to [reduce] risk.”
Global repercussions
Sharma described the tangible impacts of climate change on water infrastructure.
“In a warmer climate, we are likely to see a 38 per cent increase in the probable maximum precipitation,” he said. “That forms the basis for designing the probable maximum flood which the dam is supposed to withstand.
“If it increases by 38 per cent by the year 2100, it means that the risk of failure for existing water infrastructure is already higher than when the infrastructure was first built. This includes all the dams across the world. What we are dealing with is not a localised event – we are dealing with a global event.”
The research into rare event simulation will not be without challenges.
“These simulations are not the real storms – the real storms occur once every 10,000 years,” Sharma explained. “Even though we know that this rainfall is increasing, there are more question marks. How does rainfall vary in space and time – in arid and temperate climates? All of these questions … require a clever method to create a hypothetical extreme storm.
“This is what we have proposed the methodology for: developing, testing, publishing and setting the standards for establishing the risk of these critical infrastructures across the world.”
Industry support
While the research remains in its infancy, Sharma said industry players are already requesting the team create a software product that can be embedded into risk assessment procedures.
“We are also doing a risk assessment for the dams operated by WaterNSW that are required to implement the climate change work that we have already done,” he said. “It’s so satisfying to see that the industry is already wanting to incorporate this research into current risk practices and risk guidelines.
“It is only with [their] support that we can do any of this.”
Sharma and his team are currently looking for a PhD student to join the research team. And with their work already garnering tangible results and actions, they remain optimistic about the future.
“We hope that this is just the start.”