Identifying the information requirements of engineers during risk
assessment is a necessity to streamline the way that process is being
conducted considering the large amount of time required for gathering
documents and searching for relevant information in those
documents. The study presented here includes a three-phased approach
to identify information requirements to evaluate internal
erosion risks for embankment dams. The participants included
geologists, hydrologists, structural engineers, geotechnical engineers,
and civil engineers with experience levels ranging from 4
to 37 years to create a shared knowledge repository that will provide
integration between different disciplines.
The findings summarized the identified and validated information
requirements according to their phases. The study contributes
to the current knowledge by identifying the shared information
requirements of different engineering disciplines. Information identified
as important more than once was especially highlighted.
According to the results, the information requirements mainly emphasize
the need for dam features and surroundings characteristics,
field and laboratory test results, reservoir and storage characteristics,
and instrumentation data. Such data should be readily accessible
and available to engineers working on risk assessments so that
the time and resources expended on searching and locating such
information is minimized.The findings presented in this paper form the foundation for developing
an integrated information repository for dam risk assessment
by identifying the type of information such a repository
should contain given the wide variety of engineering disciplines
that would utilize the repository. Currently, the research presented
in this paper is being extended to generate such an information
repository and to test its value in the reduction of time and resources
in accessing the required data. These findings can also be extended
by considering more types of failure modes and different
case studies.