Reservoir Commission
The Austrian Reservoir Commission is a committee of experts from all areas of dam construction to support the water law authorities in order to ensure that both new and existing systems are measured and monitored according to the state of the art .
history
On October 27, 1918, the "Commission for Reservoir Systems" was founded in the Ministry of Public Works. The reason for the establishment of the committee was the failure of the dam on the White Desse on September 18, 1916.
The commission's task was to advise the water rights authorities and the water management association on planning and approval. One of the first projects assessed by this committee was the Spullersee , a high mountain lake in Vorarlberg that was dammed up for the electrification of the Arlbergbahn . In 1925 the first storage basin commission regulation was issued. Among other things, it regulated the area of responsibility, the composition and the formal criteria for the resolution.
It was anchored in the Water Law Act (WRG) in 1934. At that time, the terms "dam" and "reservoir" were defined. The first meeting after the amendment 1946 came into force took place on May 12, 1948. The topic of this session was the Salzasperre .
tasks
Preparation of reports
An expert report by the reservoir commission will be prepared at the request of the water law authority responsible for the submitted project. As soon as the project documents are available, a team will be put together for processing, taking into account the relevant departments (geology, soil mechanics, dam construction, statics, barrier technology, hydraulic engineering, mechanical engineering). This is usually followed by an inspection of the site, the determination of the further procedure and the request for any additional documents that may be necessary.
The applicant presents the project at the meeting of the reservoir commission. The team of experts then gives an assessment and recommendations for the decision-making process. The details are then discussed in specialist working groups and the experts' recommendations are modified if necessary. Finally, the recommendations from the working groups are dealt with in plenary and a decision is made regarding the measures that the authority uses as the basis for approval.
Resolutions on special issues
In the case of general, non-project-specific questions relating to the stability or the monitoring of dams, the reservoir commission can take a decision on the state of the art at the request of authorities or reservoir operators. An example of this approach is the decision of the reservoir commission on the qualification of dam managers in 1998. This decision became necessary because the liberalization of the electricity market had a negative impact on the level of qualification of dam managers among power plant operators. The decision of the reservoir commission counteracted this and once again formulated uniform requirements for this responsible function throughout Austria.
Creation of guidelines and guidelines
In the Reservoir Commission Ordinance 1985 it is provided that the Reservoir Commission can adopt guidelines and guidelines with regard to essential stipulations on reservoirs. These represent the state of the art and help to standardize the procedure for dimensioning and monitoring dam systems.
Guidelines and guidelines adopted so far:
- Guideline for the verification of the structural safety of concrete barriers
- Guideline for the verification of the stability of dams, 1996
- Guideline for earthquake calculation of dams; Vol. 1-6, 1996-2001
- Guide to the proof of flood safety of dams, BMLFUW, Österr. Reservoir Commission, Vienna University of Technology, version 12/2009
- Guideline for central maintenance in the operation of dams, 12/2007
- Guideline: Minimum requirements for those responsible for dams in "small dams", BMLFUW, Österr. Reservoir Commission, version 12/2009
- Manual: Operation and monitoring of "small dams" with long-term congestion, version 12/2009
Members
When the reservoir commission was set up, it was determined that its members should be experts from those specialist areas that are important for the planning, construction, ongoing operation and monitoring of reservoirs. Furthermore, several people should always be involved in each subject area in order to put the assessments and decisions on a broader basis.
Current developments
Since the turn of the millennium, the authorities have increasingly obtained expert opinions on large flood retention basins for torrent and avalanche control , as the mostly exposed location of these structures and the mixture of water and solids require special experience in dimensioning.
At the same time, the number of applications for new storage power plants is decreasing or the applications for increasing existing dams to create additional storage volume for pumped storage power plants are shifting .
Web links
Individual evidence
- ↑ Reservoir Commission Ordinance 1985 (Federal Legal Information System), accessed on September 24, 2018.
- ↑ Guidelines and guidelines of the reservoir commission (Federal Ministry for Sustainability and Tourism), accessed on September 24, 2018.