Inflow Design Flood and dam safety

The paper provides a brief history of establishing design flood criteria for dams in North America. The concept of the Probable Maximum Flood (PMF) in all cases where dam failure may result in fatalities or significant damage is present in classification systems almost everywhere in North America. Many countries on other continents followed the same pattern, but with few exceptions, countries in Europe have chosen a different approach and preferred the use of flood frequency analyses as a basis for design flood criteria. Selection of a specific design flood, irrespective of the general approach, historically rested with experts from the engineering community, and this has never been examined from the perspective of general, national safety policies, societal desires and preferences with respect to individual and group safety.