Invited Country

Mafra National Palace, Portugal

DW2025 Organisers are pleased to announce that CANADA will be the invited country at the Fifth International DAM WORLD Conference. Distinguished experts and representatives from CANADA will share their valuable insights and advancements in the field of dam engineering. 

The participation of CANADA will enhance the conference with unique perspectives and pioneering work. 

This collaboration aims to foster international knowledge exchange and innovation. 

Welcome CANADA to DW2025, and let's celebrate the spirit of global cooperation and progress. 

As a country with vast water and mineral resources, Canada has a responsibility to provide leadership in the development of dam safety measures for the protection of people, property and the environment. The Canadian Dam Association (CDA) is currently undertaking a major revision of their core publication, Dam Safety Guidelines, so they reflect best practices for both water-retaining dams and mine tailings facilities. This special session will include presentations on several important topics such as a systems approach to failure modes, incorporation of public safety into dam safety programs, the similarities and differences of water-retaining dams and mine tailings storage facilities, and how dam safety guidance is evolving to address these challenges. The presentations will be followed by a panel discussion and question period.

Session Organiser: Margaret Trias

Session Chair: Marc Smith

List of Speakers: Marc Smith, Margaret Trias, Tony Bennett, Dan Curtis, Mohammad Al-Mamun and Anthony Burnett.

Presenter:

Mohammad (Mamun) Al-Mamun is Director and Principal Consultant - Dam Practice, Tetra Tech Canada Inc. He has over twenty years of experience in geotechnical, geoenvironmental, and infrastructure engineering. His areas of expertise include design and construction of embankments dams and waste dumps, dam safety management (water, hydropower, mining), risk assessment, regulatory compliance, tailings management, large scale site investigation, foundation characterizations and instrumentation programs as well as laboratory and in-situ testing, and construction management. Mamun is member of Independent Technical Review Boards (ITRB) and acts as Engineer of Records (EoR) for mining dams.
Mamun is Secretary-Treasurer of the Canadian Dam Association (CDA). He is an active member and an instructor for the CDA, serving on technical committees and working groups. He has organized workshops and conferences for CDA, Tailings and Mine Waste (TMW) and Canadian Geotechnical Society (CGS).

Description:

CDA’s Tailings Dam Breach Analysis Workshop is based on the Technical Bulletin: Tailings Dam Breach Analysis. The
workshop has the following objectives:

• Promote the science of tailings dam breach analyses (TDBA) and build awareness on the risk of tailings dam

• failures

• Present and promote the use of Technical Bulletin: Tailings Dam Breach Analysis

• Provide training to dam safety professionals who undertake such studies for their sites and projects

• Share experiences and collect comments from participants to advance the current state of practice for TDBA

The workshop focuses on the issues and challenges that are specific to tailings dams and must be captured in such
studies. The importance of these issues has become more apparent from recent catastrophic tailings dam failures.
The main topics to be covered in the workshop are:

1. A brief overview of the Bulletin and TDBA process

2. Terminology

3. Failure scenarios and modes/mechanisms of tailings dam breach

4. Geotechnical issues of tailings relevant to TDBA

5. Rheological behavior of tailings

6. Challenges to breach modelling and outflow hydrograph/volume estimation

7. Selection of TDBA modelling cases

8. Modelling of breach runout processes (hydraulic modeling)

9. Geo-mechanical models and their limitations

10. Scope and requirements of sensitivity analysis

11. Inundation mapping and reporting

12. Common mistakes and pitfalls

13. Case studies based on recent failures.

Who should attend? 

This workshop will be of particular interest to dam owners and operators of mining facilities, regulators, non-governmental organizations, emergency planners, risk assessors and the consultants who provide services to the owners. It is helpful if the participants already have some familiarity with tailings dam operation or management. The workshop is intended to meet requirements for continuing professional development. 

Workshop prices: 

• Public in general - €330

• Students - €250