Spillway design floods in Sweden: I. New guidelines

Abstract

The new Swedish guidelines for the estimation of design floods for dams and spillways are presented, with emphasis on high-hazard dams. The method is based on a set of regional design precipitation sequences, rescaled for basin area, season and elevation above sea level, and a full hydrological model. A reservoir operation strategy is also a fundamental component of the guidelines. The most critical combination of flood generating factors is searched by systematically inserting the design precipitation sequence into a ten year climatological record, where the initial snowpack has been replaced by a statistical 30-year snowpack. The new guidelines are applicable to single reservoir systems as well as more complex hydroelectric schemes, and cover snowmelt floods, rain floods and combinations of the two. In order to study the probabilities of the computed floods and to avoid regional inconsistencies, extensive comparisons with observed floods and frequency analyses have been carried out.