Reporting reservoir incidents
How to report an incident at a reservoir and report your findings.
Report an initial incident
If you own or operate a large raised reservoir (over 10,000 cubic metres) you must report any incident to us if:
- the reservoir has an uncontrolled release of water
- you took emergency measures to stop an uncontrolled release of water from happening or from getting worse
Your first priority is to respond to the incident, report the incident to us and follow your flood plan.
What a reservoir incident is
- uncontrolled or unintentional release of water
- damage to the reservoir structure which may affect its safety
- overtopping of the dam (when it’s designed not to overtop)
- leaking of the reservoir
- slope movement or instability
- cracks in the dam or embankment
- unexpected instrument readings
- material failure
- precautionary works to reduce problems, such as draw down
- unexpected appointment of a reservoirs panel engineer
- pollution incident on or near the reservoir
If you fixed defects in your reservoir as part of routine maintenance, you should not record these as incidents.
Preliminary report
Once you have investigated the causes and impacts of the incident, you should send us a preliminary report.
We encourage you to complete a preliminary report if the incident occurred at a:
- large or small reservoir
- canal
- flood embankment
You should also send us a preliminary report if you had a near miss at your reservoir.
Final report
Once we receive your preliminary report, we will send you a final report form. You should complete the report within 12 months of the incident occurring.
We will use your final report to identify any lessons learned, helping to prevent similar incidents at other reservoirs in the future.
You may find it useful to ask a qualified civil engineer to help you with your form.
Contact us
If you are unsure if you need to report your incident, contact us and we can help you.