Impact Project 05-11-04

Impact Project 05-11-04

SOCI

ETAL

HIE

RARC

HY

National Government(s)

Regional Government(s)

Local Government(s)

Owners

Owner’s Managers

Owner’s Engineers & Scientists

Model Developers

Others (Public, Insurers)

Independent Engineers & Scientists

END-USERS

Impact Project 05-11-04

End Users Owners and Managers of “wet infrastructure”

Flood protection dykes and levees Usually some level of Government

With reactive intervention by higher levels of Government after a failure

Most significant dams are in “public ownership” Relatively small number of dams in private ownership

Public Want to be assured of their safety in the vicinity of the

structure Public policy makers

Politicians want the same assurances as the Public

Impact Project 05-11-04

The form of the problem of interest

Simulation of Tous Dam Failure Type Scenario

Impact Project 05-11-04

Can the problem be solved by science?

Impact Project 05-11-04

To manage catastrophic flood risks

Impact Project 05-11-04

Basis for international co-operation….

Problem often has international dimensions Physical effects can cross national boundaries Effects in one country have “knock-on” effects in other

distant countries Physics of phenomena independent of culture and

politics Possibly local variations of general problem of physics

Problems of concern too large for individual dam owner or authority responsible for integrity of flood protection structures

Impact Project 05-11-04

Scientific needs For general political and societal acceptance

Confirmatory research Independently reproducible: necessary condition

Creation of a sufficiently large body of supporting evidence– Independent review by those who are sceptical

Contradictory research Independently challenged: necessary condition

Demonstration that a sufficiently large search for errors and weaknesses has been carried out

– Independent review by those who are not sceptical Broadly based peer review and acceptance

By the wider scientific community: necessary condition

Impact Project 05-11-04

Simplification

Need to be clear what is being simplified: Are we simplifying

“the problem”, or, “the way of solving” the problem

Uncertainty is a complex phenomenon There is a need to distinguish between

Impact Project 05-11-04

Some sobering thoughts…..

Many of the phenomena involved fall into the domain of “trans-science” “Trans-science”: there are questions that can be asked

of science, but cannot yet be answered by science Research necessarily dominated by “uncertainty”

Making it necessary to work in the domain of probability

Probabilistic reasoning is difficult, Probabilistic reasoning is not intuitive.

Which means that there is no “simple and practical” way to properly formulate a scientific solution!