GFT Spearheads ASDSO’s Dam Safety Toolbox Website Project

Marking the culmination of a collaborative effort between GFT and the Association of State Dam Safety Officials (ASDSO), the Dam Safety Toolbox (damtoolbox.org) is live. The Dam Safety Toolbox is a wiki-based website that provides a comprehensive source for dam safety information and guidance. The site facilitates knowledge sharing among dam safety professionals and supports ASDSO’s mission to improve dam safety through education, regulatory program support, and a unified dam safety community.

Recognizing the firm’s deep technical acumen, innovative spirit, and reputation as one of the nation’s leading design firms for dams and reservoirs, ASDSO tapped GFT to develop the Dam Safety Toolbox to benefit the entire industry. The Toolbox is a single-source digital repository for current dam safety guidelines, tools, and state-of-the-practice recommendations. It provides users easy access to timely resources on dam design and safety, such as:

• Dam safety programs.
• Emergency management.
• Geotechnical design.
• Hydrology and hydraulics.
• Operation and maintenance.
• Risk management.
• Seismic assessment.
• Structural design.

The Dam Safety Toolbox was designed to educate and support all dam safety professionals, whether regulators, consultants, emergency managers, or owners. The goals of the website are to:

• Encourage and disseminate best practices within the dam safety industry by bringing all resources and guidelines to one central location.
• Provide access to training and educational resources for both novice and experienced dam safety professionals.
• Serve as an authoritative reference to support design submittals and review comments.
• Offer a platform for state and other dam safety agencies to share tools and technical information.

The Dam Safety Toolbox launched with key pages developed. Like other wiki sites, its pages can be edited and expanded, and new, interconnected pages can be added. Users are encouraged to contribute to its continued improvement and maintenance by submitting changes that a team of volunteer subject matter experts and moderators will review.

Greg Richards, PE, CFM, a senior project manager in GFT’s Dams and Hydraulics Practice, led the team that developed the Toolbox content, while Chris Eby, a senior developer in the firm’s geospatial, data science, and enterprise technology division GeoDecisions, provided programming to create a streamlined and intuitive interface.

“We appreciate the trust that ASDSO placed in GFT to help with this amazing project,” said Richards. “Our team is proud to share our dam and levee safety expertise to provide a one-stop destination that promotes best practices, fosters collaboration, and furthers ASDSO’s vision of a future where all dams are safe. We hope the dam safety community embraces and expands this resource tenfold. It will be exciting to see where our collective dam engineering resources go from here.”

Click here to begin using the Dam Safety Toolbox. And, for additional dam-related learning opportunities, consider one or more of GFT’s free, on-demand, and professional development hour-eligible webcasts.