EU-Forschungsprojekt DAMSE - European Program for critical infrastructure protection

Dams are a vital and a critical part of Europes infrastructure, providing extraordinary benefits to society, such as: renewable hydroelectric power; drinking water; flood protection; irrigation and recreation, but also represent a public safety issue, as dam failures can result in severe loss of life, economic disaster and extensive environmental damage. The project is aimed at the development and the validation of a methodology for the security assessment of dams against threats such as: terrorist attacks, sabotage and malevolent intrusions. In particular, the objectives of the project will be the following: 1. to develop a threat assessment procedure for the determination of the likelihood of malevolent adversary attacks/sabotages/intrusions to a critical asset; 2. to develop a procedure for the consequence assessment in case adversary attacks/sabotages/intrusions would succeed in compromising the ability of the dam to accomplish its mission; 3. to develop a systematic procedure for determining the effectiveness of the security protection system to prevent an attack against an operational component of the dam; 4. to develop a risk assessment procedure to support managers to evaluate the level of risk associated with the threat, consequences, and protective system effectiveness and identify the needs in terms of security upgrades or consequence mitigation for risk reduction; 5. to validate and to demonstrate the above procedures on a set of dams, identified following a preliminary screening among the dam portfolio provided by partners. The above objectives will be pursued through the beneficial cross-interactions among qualified end-users (dam owners/authorities) and developers (dam engineering specialists), joined in a trans-national team representing important European situations, respectively from Italy, Spain and Austria. The project review and results evaluation will be granted by an expert panel composed of qualified international and European experts in dam engineering and risk analysis. A suitable confidential policy will be adopted to prevent intentional and malevolent access and disclosure of sensitive data and safety related information.