1. Impact Project 05-11-04

3. End Users u Owners and Managers of “wet infrastructure” n Flood protection dykes and levees l Usually some level of Government u With reactive intervention by higher levels of Government after a failure n Most significant dams are in “public ownership” l Relatively small number of dams in private ownership u Public n Want to be assured of their safety in the vicinity of the structure u Public policy makers n Politicians want the same assurances as the Public

4. Impact Project 05-11-04 The form of the problem of interest Simulation of Tous Dam Failure Type Scenario

5. Impact Project 05-11-04 Can the problem be solved by science?

6. Impact Project 05-11-04 To manage catastrophic flood risks

7. Impact Project 05-11-04 Basis for international co-operation…. u Problem often has international dimensions n Physical effects can cross national boundaries n Effects in one country have “knock-on” effects in other distant countries n Physics of phenomena independent of culture and politics l Possibly local variations of general problem of physics u Problems of concern too large for individual dam owner or authority responsible for integrity of flood protection structures

8. Impact Project 05-11-04 Scientific needs u For general political and societal acceptance n Confirmatory research l Independently reproducible: necessary condition u Creation of a sufficiently large body of supporting evidence –Independent review by those who are sceptical n Contradictory research l Independently challenged: necessary condition u Demonstration that a sufficiently large search for errors and weaknesses has been carried out –Independent review by those who are not sceptical n Broadly based peer review and acceptance l By the wider scientific community: necessary condition

9. Impact Project 05-11-04 Simplification u Need to be clear what is being simplified: n Are we simplifying l “the problem”, or, l “the way of solving” the problem u Uncertainty is a complex phenomenon n There is a need to distinguish between

10. Impact Project 05-11-04 Some sobering thoughts….. u Many of the phenomena involved fall into the domain of “trans-science” n “Trans-science”: there are questions that can be asked of science, but cannot yet be answered by science u Research necessarily dominated by “uncertainty” n Making it necessary to work in the domain of probability l Probabilistic reasoning is difficult, l Probabilistic reasoning is not intuitive. u Which means that there is no “simple and practical” way to properly formulate a scientific solution!