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Summary
The consequences of dam and levee failure on physical and social infrastructures reach
far beyond the flood zone, making a comprehensive approach to dam and levee safety that
extends beyond the core traditional goals of safety programs necessary. At the request of
the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), the National Research Council
convened a panel of experts to consider how dam and levee safety, in concept and practice,
can be expanded to promote the core values of the FEMA mission.1 The study is intended
to aid development of initiatives that help community decision makers reduce risk of, and
increase community resilience to, dam or levee failure (see Box S.1 for the statement of
task). Two underlying principles are the foundation of discussion in this report. The first
is that although the likelihood of uncontrolled water flow from dams and levees can be
reduced in most cases, failures will still occur. The second principle is that communities
can prepare for and mitigate the consequences of failure and can become adaptable in their
responses and recoveries. To enhance community resilience, communities (including dam
and levee safety professionals) can institute adaptive processes chosen through collective and
collaborative efforts on the basis of mutual appreciation of community priorities, hazards,
and consequences.
This report will be of interest to a broad audience, but much of the discussion is directed
to dam and levee professionals in both private and public infrastructure safety programs,
and at all levels of government. Dam and levee safety professionals include infrastructure
owners, operators, and regulators, the majority of whom are technical experts in such areas
as geotechnical, geologic, hydrologic, hydraulic, and civil-structural engineering. They are
defined by their occupations and organizational responsibilities, not by proximity to dams
or levees or by exposure to risk. Because a large percentage of dam and levee infrastructure
is privately owned, many professionals are not government employees. These individuals
See www.fema.gov/about/.
1
1
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DAM AND LEVEE SAFETY AND COMMMUNITY RESILIENCE
BOX S.1
Statement of Task
An ad hoc committee of the National Research Council will analyze and provide conclusions on how
dam and levee safety programs may be broadened to include community- and regional-level preparation,
response, mitigation, and recovery from potential infrastructure failure. The study will examine
• H
olistic systematic approaches to safety analysis. Links between the geotechnical, geologic,
hydrologic and hydraulic, and civil-structural engineering aspects of safety and the risks to com-
munities and other stakeholders will be identified. The committee will consider how incorporating
mitigation, preparedness, response, and recovery into safety programs can enhance long-term
community- and regional-level resilience.
• C
ommunication and engagement. The committee will describe current practices for identifying
local and regional stakeholders, and for collecting and disseminating information among them,
including how concerns are reassessed as infrastructure conditions change, safety issues emerge,
and community needs and interests evolve. Conclusions regarding the improvement of these
practices will be provided.
• D
ecision-making and decision-support systems. The committee will summarize how safety infor-
mation, including stakeholder input, and inspection, monitoring, analysis, and impacts data are
used in safety programs for decision making for both infrastructure management and improving
community- and regional-level resilience against the primary (e.g., inundation) and secondary
impacts (e.g., regional power loss) of infrastructure failure. The committee will provide conclusions
regarding how stakeholder input may be incorporated into the design of safety and communication
decision processes.
The committee will identify tools, products, and guidance that could be developed at the federal level to
address the issues above. The human behavioral drivers that may promote or inhibit the expansion of dam
and levee safety programs to promote community resilience will be considered. The committee’s conclusions
will assist the federal government in developing a more comprehensive and effective dam and levee safety
program, but no policy or funding recommendations will be made.
ultimately will be responsible for improving dam and levee safety practice. The report com-
municates, especially to them, concepts of community resilience and the roles of profes-
sionals in increasing community resilience.
This report is not a comprehensive discussion of community resilience, nor does it offer
a general framework for building community resilience. It is a discussion of how dam and
levee safety professionals at the community level can become part of broader resilience-
focused community efforts, and how professionals at higher (state and federal) levels
m ay assist them. It describes the holistic approach and some of the major changes in safety
2
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Summary
engineering practice required of many dam and levee professionals in terms that will be
informative to them. Once a holistic approach is adopted by a safety program, safety pro-
fessionals will need to apply it to their areas of expertise and responsibility as appropriate,
given the unique qualities of the physical and social infrastructures of affected communities.
The committee’s major conclusions related to the concepts and processes necessary
to bring about these changes are presented. Each conclusion builds on the preceding. A
framework for process selection is provided, but because operations to enhance safety and
resilience will be necessarily unique for each community, specific steps for enhancing resil-
ience are not provided. The first three conclusions define community, community resilience,
and the responsibility of dam and levee professionals with respect to resilience. The fourth
conclusion addresses policy and practice with respect to information access. The fifth and
sixth conclusions relate to collaborative risk management and approaches. The seventh
summarizes necessary shifts in safety program practice and culture. The eighth addresses
how the federal government might assist. The ninth and tenth conclusions address assess-
ment of safety program and community processes for enhancing resilience and a framework
for doing so.
DAM AND LEVEE SAFETY GOVERNANCE
Governance of dams differs from levee governance. Over 30 years, the National Dam
Safety Program (NDSP) has assisted in enhancing state dam safety programs which regu-
late individual dam owners and their programs. As a result, safety is often equated with
reducing the likelihood of dam failure. However, many state programs are unable to meet
NDSP objectives, and individuals, property, and institutions are at risk for direct and indi-
rect consequences of failure. A lack of unified standards and policies across the regulatory
community causes many dam owners to grapple with conflicting standards that often ignore
downstream issues and effects, and that do not address community-wide risk.
In contrast with dam programs, there is little governance or guidance for levee programs
that are outside the federal domain where the Army Corps of Engineers provides some
specific guidance. The National Flood Insurance Program (NFIP)—managed by FEMA
to map flood-prone areas, establish floodplain management regulations, and provide flood
insurance—has established a 100-year base flood elevation criterion that has become a de
facto standard in the absence of more definitive guidance. However, development close to
levees may increase risk to people and property, with little or no liability or accountability
on the part of developers. This increases the dilemma for levee infrastructure owners and
managers.
3
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DAM AND LEVEE SAFETY AND COMMMUNITY RESILIENCE
RESILIENCE AND COMMUNITY
The terms resilience and community may be defined differently by engineers, social
scientists, emergency managers, and others. The ability to institutionalize many of the
suggestions in this report depends, in part, on a common understanding of these terms.
This report uses a definition of resilience consistent with that of FEMA: the ability of a
system to absorb change and disturbance while maintaining its basic structure and function.
Resilience, however, does not imply that a system will necessarily return to its original state
after an adverse event. Because communities are not static systems, resilient communities
are those able to adapt to changing conditions, continue to meet the critical needs of com-
munity members, and maintain a sense of community identity.
Conclusion 1. The dam and levee community comprises dam and levee safety
professionals, and other individuals, groups, and institutions that benefit from
the continued and safe functioning of dam and levee infrastructure—whether or
not those benefits are recognized by the individual community members.
Community, as defined in this report, includes all persons and organizations exposed to
direct consequences (the physical effects of inundation such as loss of life or property) or
indirect consequences (such as financial burden, loss of public services, or loss of benefits
from the ecosystem) of dam or levee failure. Indirect consequences of failure may affect
those outside the geographic vicinity of dam or levee infrastructure or floodplains, defined
as stakeholders in this report. Interested and affected parties therefore include dam and
levee safety professionals, persons and property at risk, social-economic systems (such as
governance organizations, emergency management offices, political and social networks,
and environmental and cultural resources), and members of the wider economy. The dam
or levee community could, in some cases, extend regionally and globally and include manu-
facturing interests whose supply chains may be disrupted, financial institutions, commercial
risk managers, the insurance market, and FEMA (as manager of the NFIP).
Conclusion 2. Community resilience is a community effort, and dam and levee
safety professionals are part of the community.
As a system, a community depends on the proper functioning of its components. Com-
munity resilience depends on the interactive functioning of those components, especially
during times of stress. Dams and levees, as part of the nation’s critical infrastructure, con-
tribute to the functioning of many communities. The expertise and practice of dam and
levee professionals, as the designers and caretakers of dams and levees, are critical for
community resilience. However, dam and levee infrastructure also depends on other com-
4
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Summary
ponents of the community, and dam and levee professionals are interconnected with the
communities they serve and often live in.
Conclusion 3. Those subject to the direct or indirect impacts of dam or levee
failure are also those with the opportunity to reduce the consequences of fail-
ure through physical and social changes in the community, community growth
planning, safe housing construction, financial planning (including bonds and
insurance), and development of the capacity to adapt to change.
Understanding the purpose, benefits, and associated risks of dam and levee infrastruc-
ture can motivate a community to assess, anticipate, minimize, and absorb potential threats
over the short and long terms. Although those who suffer the consequences of infrastructure
failure may have little or no control over the infrastructure, everyone can help reduce the
consequences, if not the risk, of failure. Understanding individual and organizational roles
and responsibilities with respect to personal, financial, and other types of risk associated
with potential dam and levee failure scenarios is a starting point for enhancing community
resilience. Safety and resource management programs can provide safety and risk informa-
tion related to dam and levee functions and can participate in decision making that helps
a community prepare, mitigate, respond, recover, and adapt in response to potential infra-
structure failure. In turn, the technical decisions (e.g., to raise or lower water levels under
given circumstances) may be more supportive of community resilience given improved
understanding of community functions and priorities.
ENABLING INFORMATION ACCESS
Conclusion 4. Current policy and practices restrict access to information critical
to public risk awareness, mitigation, preparedness, response, recovery, and com-
munity capacity for adaptation. Dam and levee safety processes and products
(such as inspections, Emergency Action Plans [EAPs], and inundation maps)
are intended to support decision making and enhanced community resilience,
but are not readily available to all community members and stakeholders who
make those decisions.
The availability of hazard- and risk-related data is essential for informed decision mak-
ing on the part of dam and levee professionals and the broader community. Decisions or
practices intended to support national security, protect proprietary interests, or minimize
liability concerns, however, can also prevent dissemination of information critical to risk
assessment and decision making related to safety and resilience. Dam and levee infrastruc-
ture could be managed better with greater understanding of upstream and downstream risk
5
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DAM AND LEVEE SAFETY AND COMMMUNITY RESILIENCE
factors. For example, in the absence of accurate inundation maps, FEMA maps are often
used to identify flood risks, but they do not depict the areal extent or the severity of floods
that can result from dam or levee failure. Communities therefore cannot establish informed
priorities or take informed action. Insurers and financial institutions make decisions without
knowing potential catastrophic flood risks of any one location, or the potential aggregate
effects. Common understanding of potential hazard scenarios, risks, and consequences is
critical for the development of long-term sustainable solutions.
COLLABORATIVE RISK MANAGEMENT
Conclusion 5. Enhancing resilience will be most successful when dam and levee
safety professionals and other community members and stakeholders identify
and manage risk collaboratively in ways that increase understanding and com-
munication of risks, shared needs, and opportunities.
Resilience-focused collaboration is a means of increasing understanding and commu-
nication of risks, shared needs, and opportunities if all elements of the community can be
engaged and robustly vested in the outcomes of collaborative efforts. Social capital—the
connections within community networks that can be used to meet societal objectives—is
vital for community resilience. Resilient communities use their social and physical in -
frastructures and lifeline systems effectively to communicate and coordinate activities to
mitigate, prepare for, respond to, recover from, and learn and adapt in response to disasters.
Enhancing community resilience therefore implies greater interaction between dam and
levee owners and the broader community than has been traditional in most dam and levee
safety practices.
Collaborative identification of individual and collective issues, needs, resources, and
solutions provides a means to manage systems, such as communities, that are too complex
for any individual or entity to understand adequately. The benefits of collaborative engage-
ment to dam and levee owners can include increased profitability and decreased liability
(both as a result of reduced risk) and increased trust in and of the broader community.
Regulators acquire a means to better promote public safety. Long-term benefits to dam
and levee professionals come through the ability to contribute to and influence community
planning and decision making (e.g., with respect to emergency management and recovery
and land-use and financial planning).
Dam and levee safety programs, however, often operate independently of other com-
munity functions, and dam and levee professionals often fail to understand the value of
community engagement and social capital to their own programs. Encouraging dam and
levee professionals’ participation in community resilience efforts will be most effective if the
case is made from within the profession. Moving concepts of resilience into the mainstream
6
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Summary
of safety practice will take considerable effort on the part of professional associations and
all agencies involved in dam and levee safety. Dam and levee professionals and the com-
munities they serve need assistance identifying mechanisms for engagement in the form
of tools, guidance, and examples of best practices, whether for the purpose of enhancing
safety related to infrastructure operations, or for providing expertise, for example, in the
management of land use, floodplains, or financial risk.
Conclusion 6. Risk-informed approaches allow dam and levee professionals to
improve their understanding of infrastructure-system operations, performance,
vulnerabilities, and the consequences of potential failures, and allow them and
the broader community to make better decisions related to dam and levee infra-
structure and resilience.
Risk-informed approaches are practices based on the information gathered through risk
assessment and are not regularly applied in many dam and levee safety programs. Engineer-
ing design and operating procedures for dams and levees are primarily standards-based—for
example, based on a defined level of infrastructure performance given a specific hazard.
Standards-based approaches do not explicitly quantify performance uncertainty or risk.
Risk-informed approaches, however, take into account the likelihood and consequences of
different failure scenarios and can provide designers and operators more information with
which to make technical decisions that improve safety. Communities also benefit from
having information on the nature of potential failures, risks, and consequences. Resources
can then be allocated more strategically based on the consequences for different community
or stakeholder groups.
A CULTURAL SHIFT
Conclusion 7. Improving dam and levee safety programs to emphasize processes
that enhance community resilience requires a culture shift among dam and levee
professionals. This new emphasis requires embracing the responsibilities—and
the benefits—associated with developing and implementing collaborative risk-
management processes that facilitate enhanced community resilience.
A new norm for dam and levee safety practice requires overcoming institutional ob-
stacles and establishing new goals that move practice beyond mere regulatory compliance.
Dam and levee professionals will need to identify and engage community members and
stakeholders, recognize shared goals and resources, and develop and implement processes
that enhance community resilience. These include understanding factors critical for com-
munity well-being, creating more effective EAPs, being more aware of community land use
7
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DAM AND LEVEE SAFETY AND COMMMUNITY RESILIENCE
and planning, and reducing liabilities as a result of reduced flood risk. This shift is more
likely to be successful through incremental expansion of traditional dam and levee safety
practices.
W hereas a cultural shift is necessary, the work to engage community members and
stakeholders does not have to start from scratch. Models of collaborative engagement exist
from which to draw, and dam and levee professionals already may have professional relation-
ships with well-networked emergency-management professionals, local government and
community leaders, local industry, chambers of commerce, and other community groups.
Collaborative networks for enhancing community resilience may already exist in some
communities for dam and levee professionals to join. Dam and levee professionals do not
need to invent or lead collaborative efforts, but do have a responsibility to share their unique
knowledge for their own benefit, the benefit of the organizations they represent, and the
benefit of the larger community.
Figure S.1 is a conceptual framework for resilience-focused collaboration for the dam
and levee safety community. Central to the framework are collaborative processes for re-
source and floodplain management including those for operational and risk communication,
risk assessment, and preparedness and mitigation. Participation in, feedback from, and
evaluation of collaborative processes by the community are necessary for effective and sus-
tainable collaboration. Figure S.1 also illustrates that political, economic, cultural, physical
environmental, and other community factors influence the effectiveness of collaboration,
but may also be influenced as a result of collaborative efforts. Social capital, more informed
decision making, and other resilience-related outcomes are among the benefits of collabora-
tion that may lead to increased resilience.
BENCHMARKING PROGRESS IN SAFETY AND ENGAGEMENT
Conclusion 8. The federal government can aid resilience-enhancing efforts by
identifying, cataloging, further developing, communicating, and facilitating the
use of tools and guidance that already exist in the published literature and in
federal and state guidelines. Many existing tools may need little or no modifi-
cation to be useful for enhancing community resilience for specific situations.
Cataloging existing tools is a first step in identifying and setting priorities for
developing necessary new tools.
Integration of the ideas in this report into practice will be supported by the identifica-
tion and selection of appropriate guidelines, methods, and means of selecting or imple-
menting best practices for a given process. Examples of tools are dam inspection guidelines
and floodplain zoning criteria. Because safety and resilience are community- and situation-
specific, recommendation of the “best” tools is neither possible nor helpful. The federal
8
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Community Members
d distribution Dam and Leve
Dam and Levee Professionals
ility an e info
ailab rma
Persons and Property Owners at Risk
av tion
tion Economic Agents ava
ma ilab
Social-Ecological System
for ilit
in y
e
ve
an
d
Le
dis
and
Community participation, feedback, and evaluation
trib
utio
Dam
n
Collaborative Processes
Resource and Floodplain
Management
Operational and Risk Preparedness and Risk Assessment
Communication Mitigation
Community Community
• Community dam and • Dam and levee hazard • Stakeholder
participation, participation,
levee safety education mitigation assessment
feedback, feedback,
and awareness • Funding infrastructure repair and • Life cycle hazard and
and and
• Information dissemination maintenance risk assessment
Community Factors
communication networks)
evaluation evaluation
(e.g., maps) • Financial response and recovery
planning and preparedness
(e.g., political, economic, cultural and
Resilience-Related Outcomes
physical environments; public policies)
social capital, informed decisions, trusted
• Risk-informed land-use planning
(e.g., available risk information, increased
• Emergency response and
recovery planning and
preparedness
tion
Dam
u
trib
and
L
dis
ev
nd
ee
Community participation, feedback, and evaluation
ya
i nf
ilit
orm
ilab
atio
ava
n
na
a ti o
vail
or m
abili
in f
Community Resilience
ty an
D a m a n d L e ve e
d distrib
ution
9
FIGURE S.1 Conceptual framework for resilience-focused collaboration related to dam and levee safety.
Figure 4-2 and S-1
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DAM AND LEVEE SAFETY AND COMMMUNITY RESILIENCE
government can best contribute to community-level resilience in a supportive role—through
training and provision of information, guidance, tools, and appropriately considered best
practices (all referred to as tools in this report). Because multiple federal agencies are involved
in efforts to enhance community resilience, many tools may already exist and can be applied
to safety and resilience efforts. Federal agencies with roles in dam and levee safety could
review their own processes for enhancing safety and community resilience, and collaborate
with states and representative owners to identify useful tools and resources, both existing
and those that could be developed, that would most productively facilitate community-level
resilience efforts. Cataloging and evaluating existing tools and best practices described in the
published literature and elsewhere would result in a database that could be shared broadly.
Development of new tools is best informed through collaborative processes that take
advantage of the expertise of key community members, stakeholders, and dam and levee
professionals at all levels. Given the uniqueness of communities, tools and guidance are
more useful if scalable, flexible, and able to provide the right level of analysis in different
circumstances. One-size-fits-all tools, for example, may not be useful for both local- and
state-level decision makers. The most effective means of making tools available at the com-
munity level need to be determined and acted on.
Attention by the federal government could be focused on the tools, training, and in-
formation that would help dam and levee professionals identify and engage community
members and stakeholders; the community-specific processes for disseminating risk-related
information; and identification of community priorities and resources. Also necessary is at-
tention to improving risk-reduction and mitigation measures, land-use management, finan-
cial resilience and preparedness, and on the means to benchmark progress in all aspects of
the larger effort to improve resource and floodplain management and community resilience.
Conclusion 9. Collaborative efforts that become a normal part of community
functioning will enhance resilience more successfully in the long term. Continu -
ous improvements in community resilience are more likely if such processes as
community and stakeholder engagement assessment are institutionalized by
dam and levee safety programs and the broader community.
Efforts to enhance safety and resilience can be sustained over the long term only with
the widespread expectation that such efforts are necessary to improve community well-
being. Formalized (e.g., institutionalized) programwide changes that expand current safety
program goals of merely achieving regulatory compliance will need widespread acceptance.
Community resilience cannot be created and sustained through short-term initiatives or
activities of only a few in the community. Incremental steps that integrate activities of mul-
tiple community networks are required. Long-term plans that consider life-cycle benefits
and costs of dam and levee infrastructure need to be widely communicated, understood,
10
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Summary
and acted on by the community in consideration of how actions fit into the larger resilience
picture. Community engagement and the means of assessing and transforming engagement
to inform long-term management of safety programs will make improving social capital,
benchmarking processes, and identifying opportunities to improve community resilience
part of the operational norm.
The greater community also needs to institutionalize engagement with dam and levee
safety professionals into community functioning, perhaps as part of an already-existing
all-inclusive community resilience strategy. An institutionalized forum for collaboration is
needed in which community members, stakeholders, and dam and levee professionals can
address community resilience issues, including resource and floodplain management; opera-
tional and risk communication; safety and resilience education and awareness; community
member and stakeholder analyses; life-cycle hazard and risk assessment and mitigation;
risk-informed land-use planning; funding for infrastructure repair and maintenance; finan-
cial preparedness, recovery, and response; and emergency response and recovery planning
and preparedness. The mechanism for participation and feedback needs to be nonpartisan
and not be tied to any particular administration or community-member bias.
Conclusion 10. Enhancing resilience requires frequent and collective evaluation
of risk, safety, and collaborative processes. The proposed Maturity Matrix for
Assessing Community Engagement can be used by dam and levee safety pro-
fessionals, community members and stakeholders, and government entities at
all levels to benchmark and manage the progress of industry and community
processes related to safety and engagement. Details of assessment are necessarily
unique for each community. The federal government can assist communities by
providing an initial framework for the assessment tool, and providing informa-
tion and training for its development and continued use at the community level.
Metrics for direct evaluation of community resilience, or the effectiveness of tools and
processes to improve resilience, do not exist. The effectiveness of a tool or process depends
in large part on its appropriate use given the abilities and collective goals of a community.
The Maturity Matrix for Assessing Community Engagement (see Table S.1 for a generic
example) can assist dam and levee professionals and the broader community in gauging
the level of safety and resilience practice with respect to community engagement, and in
improving understanding of how individual processes are parts of the larger resilience pic-
ture. The tool can allow communities to communicate operations already in place, identify
weaknesses, decide on community resilience goals and priorities, and identify the means
of meeting the goals.
The Maturity Matrix for Assessing Community Engagement is based on concepts
developed in the software and systems engineering industry. It uses a matrix—called a
11
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DAM AND LEVEE SAFETY AND COMMMUNITY RESILIENCE
TABLE S.1 Sample Entries for a Maturity Matrix for Assessing Community Engagement
Elements Level I Level II Level III
Dam or levee safety reviews No activity Standards-based Introduction of
only additional review
criteria (e.g., failure
mode analysis)
Other programs related to Each tool is defined at different levels to show progression
conventional dam/levee safety from minimum activity (Level I) through best industry practice
activities to full community member and stakeholder engagement and
collaboration (Level V)
Emergency action plans No activity EAPs developed EAPs developed with
internally by owner input from emergency
management agency
Specific tools related to Each tool is defined at different levels showing progression from
emergency planning response, minimum activity (Level I) through best industry practice to community
including development of member and full stakeholder engagement and collaboration (Level V)
community preparedness
measures, warning and
evacuation procedures, and
recovery plans
Floodplain management No floodplain Floodplain Floodplain management
management plans management plans plans accommodate
in place shadow floodplain
associated with
catastrophic dam or
levee failure
Specific tools such as those Each tool is defined at different levels showing progression
related to land-use planning from minimum activity (Level I) through best industry practice
and floodplain management, to community member and full stakeholder engagement and
including initiatives for financial collaboration (Level V)
incentives and zoning reform
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Summary
Level IV Level V Examples of Possible Outcomes
Application of quantitative risk Application of quantitative risk Community is fully apprised of
assessment by using criteria assessment by using criteria that current level of risk
developed by owner or regulator reflect the community’s societal
with input from community values
members and stakeholders
EAPs developed with input Community collaboration with Community collaboration
from community members and owners or operators to develop results in EAPs that minimize
stakeholders and emergency integrated EAPs that reflect consequences of defined
management agency and community values emergencies by incorporating
shared with selected community community values and the
representatives potential for community
resilience
Floodplain management plans Floodplain management plans Full participation by both
integrated into community fully integrated into dam and community and dam and
comprehensive or general plans levee owners’ planning processes levee owners in floodplain
management facilitates adoption
of complementary resilience-
enhancing measures
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DAM AND LEVEE SAFETY AND COMMMUNITY RESILIENCE
maturity matrix—to assess how advanced or “mature” a program is with respect to a spe-
cific goal. A dam or levee safety program may create a maturity matrix with rows that
describe specific program or community processes, such as dam or levee safety reviews,
EAP development, floodplain management, and land-use planning. Columns under each
maturity-level heading are populated with tools that are in place in the program or com-
munity for a specific function, and tools that should be in place at given increased levels
of community engagement related to that function. The maturity levels represent a con-
tinuum of practice: from no activity or a small amount of structure-centric activity to fully
informed community-centric processes that include incorporation of community priorities
in decision making.
Maturity matrices are unique to each community and can be as complex as community
needs dictate. It may be necessary to include several subheadings in any given row to address
a specific goal fully. The community engagement process to create a maturity matrix is as
useful as the developed matrix itself. Populating each cell of the matrix facilitates a complete
assessment of a program’s safety, communication, and engagement processes. Compiling
the matrix compels dam and levee owners to scrutinize current goals and processes, helps
them set goals for increased safety, engagement, and resilience, and to set priorities among
goals. The exercise of developing the matrix is useful to bridge communication gaps among
those who have different expertise, and the matrix itself is a vehicle for communicating with
the broader community. Evaluating and choosing processes collaboratively helps generate
a common vocabulary among community members and stakeholders.
Once developed, the matrix becomes a transparent mechanism for planning and evalu-
ating community resilience. Regular self- and community assessment of safety and resil-
ience programs using the matrix results in a visual reminder of status of the program or
community with respect to specific goals. A community will never reach “100 percent
maturity,” because there is always opportunity for improvement or the need to respond to
change. Similarly, maturity does not necessarily mean communities are free from risk. As
the matrix is updated to reflect changing community or infrastructure conditions, it can be
used to communicate where a program is more or less mature, and to prioritize community
and program resource use to sustain and increase resilience, and to sustain the resilience-
focused collaboration.
The assessment tool is scalable and readily modified for a large variety of resilience-
related activities, programs, or types of infrastructure that affect resilience at different levels
(local, state, regional, and national). Table S.1 is a generic matrix for dam and levee safety
programs that, to be useful, must be customized by each community and each safety or-
ganization. The federal government can be instrumental in developing further the basic
framework for the Maturity Matrix for Assessing Community Engagement and in devel-
oping guidance for its use.
To populate a community-specific matrix, safety programs and communities will need
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Summary
assistance determining characteristics of resilience in their communities, determining strate-
gies for identifying and engaging community members and stakeholders, and determining
the vulnerabilities and risks associated with all hazards and alternatives for reducing or miti-
gating them. Federal agencies that have responsibility for dams and levees can collaborate
to examine safety programs, identify the means to improve their own knowledge of risk
communication, advise communities how risk can be communicated in clear, understand-
able, and actionable terms, and to explore the role of community factors including legisla-
tion and land-use planning, in the severity of hazards and consequences to a community.
15
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