The US Army Corps of Engineers and the US Bureau of Reclamation pride themselves on having a long history of collaboration in evaluating, constructing, operating, and maintaining water infrastructure projects. In addition, they also share management responsibilities at major facilities.
The two agencies’ combined water-related infrastructure consists of 1,200 dams, 5,000 recreational areas, 152 hydropower plants that power 10 million homes, plus water storage provision for 130 million people.
With modern-day water resource challenges unlike anything witnessed before, the Army Corps and Reclamation say they are committed to constructing infrastructure projects that will strengthen the US economy, protect people and property, and restore key ecosystems. In an effort to achieve this, both organisations have recently made record investments in critical water resource construction projects and in developing innovative approaches to address the most pressing challenges. They’ve also collaborated on the publication of “State of the Infrastructure: A Joint Report by the Bureau of Reclamation and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers”, which provides a high-level overview of the infrastructure asset portfolio and related asset management practices, collaboration efforts, and future strategies.
USACE civil works director Edward Belk, Jr. said: “We are at a critical moment in our history with a once-in-a-generation investment in our nation’s civil works infrastructure.
“Together, we can provide the most efficient and effective solutions to promote safety, economic well-being, and the environment in the West and across the country.”
As well as focusing on hydropower and dam facilities, the report also looked at levees. The Army Corps Levee Safety Programme portfolio includes 1599 levee systems totalling over 21,400km in length. Of these, local sponsors operate and maintain 1470 levee systems that make up roughly 92% of the portfolio, with the remaining systems being operated and maintained by the Army Corps.
Challenges facing the portfolio of levees include:
- Changing flood conditions, magnitudes, frequencies, and increased population density can increase risk.
- Resources are increasingly focused on reacting to and recovering from significant natural catastrophic events.
- Effectively communicating risk to the public.
- Increasing maintenance and replacement costs. If unaddressed, deferred maintenance may result in additional levee safety issues.
- Carefully balancing levee safety while minimising impacts to the environment.
Facility security was another component focused upon within the report. Increasing cybersecurity risks to critical infrastructure has demanded greater investments to secure operational technology control systems. Reclamation says it has actively integrated security into its facility management practices by developing and implementing a comprehensive risk assessment programme that encompasses infrastructure, information, and personnel. It also actively engages with the Army Corps in a variety of forums to ensure consistent policies and strategies for infrastructure protection. These forums help the greater dams sector community to facilitate the resilience of integrated water systems throughout the US.
Due to increasing cyber terrorism, the Army Corps created the US Army Corps of Engineers Critical Infrastructure Cybersecurity Centre of Expertise (UCIC), to help identify and combat cyber risk to operational technology control systems. The UCIC and Reclamation collaborate extensively, along with other federal agencies, on operational technology initiatives to improve threat detection and prevention capabilities.
Looking ahead, the two agencies identify evolving influences on US infrastructure which include:
- Increases and shifts in population that result in changing water supply and power needs, new demands, changes in potential consequences that affect risk management strategies, and ongoing updates to facility security measures.
- Changes in the magnitudes and frequencies of hydrologic events, resulting in the potential for greater damages to exposed areas and a need for continued and improved monitoring and response capabilities so that water-related infrastructure can provide the Nation with vital benefits long into the future.
Innovative storage
New research suggests Australia’s agricultural water reservoirs could be an innovative energy storage solution for variable renewables. According to recent studies by the University of New South Wales, tens of thousands of small-scale hydroenergy storage sites could be built from Australia’s farm dams, supporting the uptake of reliable, low-carbon power systems in rural communities.
Agricultural reservoirs, such as those used for solar-power irrigation, could be connected to form micro-pumped hydro energy storage systems. The research, published in Applied Energy, is described as being the world’s first study to assess such potential of these small-scale systems.
“The transition to low-carbon power systems like wind and solar photovoltaics needs cost-effective energy storage solutions at all scales,” says Dr Nicholas Gilmore, lead author of the study and lecturer at the School of Mechanical and Manufacturing Engineering at the University of New South Wales Engineering. “We thought if you’re geographically fortunate to have two significant water volumes separated with sufficient elevation, you might have the potential to have your own hydro energy storage system.”
Along with researchers from Deakin University and the University of Technology Sydney, the team used satellite imagery to create unique agricultural reservoir pairings across Australia from a 2021 dataset of farm dams. They then used graph theory algorithms – a branch of mathematics that models how nodes can be organised and interconnected – to filter commercially promising sites based on minimum capacity and slope.
UNSW Science’s School of Mathematics and Statistics senior lecturer and co-author of the study Thomas Britz said: “If you have a lot of dams in close proximity, it’s not viable to link them up in every combination.
“So, we use these graph theory algorithms to connect the best dam configurations with a reasonable energy capacity.”
From nearly 1.7 million farm dams, the researchers identified over 30,000 promising sites across Australia for micro-pumped hydro energy storage. The average site could provide up to 2kW of power and 30kWh of usable energy – enough to back up a South Australian home for 40 hours.
The research team also benchmarked a micro-pumped hydro site to a commercially available lithium-ion battery in solar-powered irrigation systems. Despite a low discharge efficiency, they found the pumped hydro storage was 30 per cent cheaper for a large single cycle load due to its high storage capacity.
Gilmore added: “We identified tens of thousands of these potential sites where micro-pumped hydro energy storage systems could be installed without undertaking costly reservoir construction.
“That’s thousands of households that could potentially increase their solar usage, saving money on their energy bills, and reducing their carbon footprint.
“While the initial outlay for a micro-pumped hydro energy storage system is higher than a battery, the advantages are larger storage capacity and potential durability for decades.
“But that cost is significantly reduced anyway by capitalising on existing reservoirs, which also has the added benefit of less environmental impact.”
Building micro-pumped hydro energy power systems from existing farm dams could also assist rural areas susceptible to power outages that need a secure and reliable backup power source. Battery backup power is generally limited to less than half a day, while generators, though powerful, are dependent on affordable fuel supply and produce harmful emissions.
Gilmore added: “People on the fringes of the electricity network can be more exposed to power outages, and the supply can be less reliable.
“If there’s a power outage during a bushfire, for example, a pumped hydro system will give you enough energy to last a day, whereas a battery typically lasts around eight hours.”
Although encouraging, the researchers say some limitations of the study require further analysis, including fluctuations in water availability, pump scheduling and discharge efficiency.
Gilmore added: “Our findings are encouraging for further development of this emerging technology, and there is plenty of scope for future technological improvements that will make these systems increasingly cheaper over time.
“The next step would be setting up a pilot site, testing the performance of a system in action and modelling it in detail to get real-world validation.”
Indonesian updates
Most research on dams in Southeast Asia allegedly focuses on the Mekong River Basin, meaning there is limited research on dams in Indonesia. In order to rectify this a new study has led to the development of a comprehensive database of the country’s dams.
The authors of the research published in Remote Sensing, say that national level databases can be used to complement and validate existing global databases. As such, the aims of their study was to develop a dam database for Indonesia by consolidating information from multiple sources, providing a breakdown of different dam types, and assessing the location of dams across the country.
The research team from Singapore, Indonesia, and Brazil, compiled a comprehensive database derived from global and local datasets, using Google Earth Pro to locate additional dams and validate the presence of all dams. The new database has a total of 1506 dams (from large to mini and run-of river structures) in operation or under construction – three times the number reported in Indonesia’s national database for dams. There were another 250 planned dams, of which, only 30 had known locations.
The new open-access database provides a comprehensive list of information that includes the description of the dam’s characteristics, its location, its relationship to rivers, and its tributaries, as well as the purpose of the dam. Such information is useful when assessing the social and environmental impacts of a dam. In addition, such a database can also be used for dam monitoring and management and for informing investigation efforts regarding dam failure. Catchment level studies that seek to understand the impacts of a dam or a series of dams in a watershed will also benefit from such a database.
Java had the highest number of 697 operational dams, followed by Bali Nusra (326), Sumatra (241), Sulawesi (153), Kalimantan (58), Maluku (16), and Papua (15). Of the 1506 operational dams, 22% were located on the main river, and the remaining 78% on river tributaries. The number of mainstream dams was highest in Bali Nusra and the number of tributary dams was highest in Java. Upon assessing the primary purpose of dams, most dams in the new database were for irrigation, followed by water supply and storage, hydropower and flood control.
The database can be used by researchers, non-government organisations, and government agencies for conducting multiple types of water resources, environmental, and social-economic studies. The research team believe its work contributes towards a better comprehension of the state of water use in Indonesia, and hope that it can help to improve public administration and governance.
Intelligent insights
Artificial intelligence has the potential to revolutionise the field of dam engineering, providing engineers with new tools and techniques to better predict dam behaviour, optimise operations, make informed decisions and thus lead to improved dam safety, efficiency, and sustainability.
However, despite the potential benefits of AI, several challenges need to be addressed before it can be fully integrated into dam engineering. According to new research by Hariri-Ardebili et al published in Engineering Applications of Artificial Intelligence, this includes data quality and availability, algorithmic transparency, and ethical considerations.
As cited in the report, The Role of Artificial Intelligence and Digital Technologies in Dam Engineering: Narrative Review and Outlook, one of the significant challenges in implementing AI in dam engineering is the availability and quality of data. Obtaining reliable and comprehensive data can be challenging, while privacy concerns, proprietary data, and regulatory restrictions, also mean that sharing dam data can be difficult.
This is why collaborative efforts among dam owners, operators, and researchers are crucial and the establishment of data-sharing protocols, frameworks, and platforms that ensure confidentiality and comply with regulations can facilitate the responsible and secure exchange of data. As the authors state, it is important for the dam engineering community to recognise the value and benefits of data sharing and actively work towards overcoming the barriers associated with accessibility.
While machine learning models can be highly accurate, the lack of interpretability of the models can be a concern and engineers and stakeholders need to understand how AI systems work to be able to make informed decisions. While there are also ethical and legal issues associated with the use of AI in dam engineering.
From a regulatory standpoint, it is essential for AI-based applications to conform to safety standards, environmental regulations, and other relevant guidelines specific to dam construction, operation, and maintenance. Ethically, it is important to handle sensitive and confidential data securely and in a manner that preserves privacy, while ensuring transparency and accountability in AI systems will help to mitigate potential biases and discriminatory outcomes.
Although AI has the potential to improve dam engineering processes, the authors warn that it is not a substitute for human expertise. Engineers must be actively involved in the development and implementation of AI systems to ensure their effectiveness and safety. In addition, implementing AI in dam engineering can be costly, and ensuring that it is accessible to all organisations and governments is essential to ensure its widespread adoption and benefits.
Looking to the future, the authors recommend that further research is needed to better understand the potential applications of AI in dam engineering and to develop new algorithms and techniques specifically tailored to the needs of this field. Efforts should be made to improve the quality and availability of data in dam engineering, including data on dam behaviour, hydrological conditions, and environmental factors. While algorithmic transparency and ethical considerations should be a key priority when developing AI applications in dam engineering, with a particular focus on ensuring that AI systems are fair, unbiased, and transparent.
Under pressure
In Canada, British Colombia’s watersheds are described as being under severe pressure. Three consecutive years of drought culminated in 2023 with the worst drought and fire season in the province’s history, which followed the devastating floods of 2021 that cost nearly C$9 billion. Climate impacts are combining with decades of watershed degradation to reduce the security of communities and ecosystems, and there is now both a critical need and a vital opportunity to grow and develop BC’s watershed sector to meet the challenges it faces.
Already a significant piece of BC’s economy, in 2021 the watershed sector was directly employing 27, 200 people and supporting jobs for 47,900 British Columbians. It also contributed C$5 billion to the province’s GDP. There is a vast opportunity for the private sector to act as leaders in addressing needs and translating opportunities into action, while at the same time managing business risk associated with water and other climate impacts.
Led by strategic consulting firm Delphi, the newly published Working for Watersheds Roadmap is a blueprint that lays out a strategic vision for how development of the province’s watershed sector over the next 5-10 years. It is a collaboration, with input from industry, government, First Nations, and non-profit organisations, including the Vancouver Foundation, BC Freshwater Legacy Initiative, Royal Bank of Canada, Real Estate Foundation of BC, and the BC Ministry of Water, Lands & Resource Stewardship.
The Roadmap is structured into Streams of Action that are working towards advancing the BC watershed sector towards a thriving and regenerative economy by 2030. Existing literature, expert feedback, and a suite of engagement activities were used to identify the critical activities and recommended actions within each stream.
The streams include building sector profile and awareness by engaging internal and external partners, as well as conduct further research to identify linkages between water and other priorities such as climate resilience, energy and infrastructure. Others include sustainable funding, policy and governance, workforce development, plus growing innovation capacity to support technology development, commercialisation and deployment of solutions.
The roadmap is described as a call to action for people, organisations, and water users across the sector to work together for healthy and resilient watersheds that are not only vital for the economy and society but watershed security as a critical part of climate resilience.
As the roadmap concludes, a thriving watershed sector is an integral component of a distributive and regenerative economy. “Working for Watersheds is a collective effort that is gaining momentum,” it states. “The time, ideas, energy, and resources contributed are like raindrops slowly trickling down and ultimately combining in a flowing river.”
This article first appeared in International Water Power magazine.
