Linking the Reservoir Volume to the Flood Inundation Extent: A Multi-Dam Empirical Model for Indonesian Dam Safety
Received: 9 May 2025 | Revised: 23 June 2025, 7 July 2025, and 13 July 2025 | Accepted: 19 July 2025 | Online: 15 September 2025
Corresponding author: Runi Asmaranto
Abstract
Indonesia rapidly expands its dam infrastructure to meet the water resource and development needs. This expansion, however, coupled with more extreme rainfall events due to the climate change, significantly increases the risk of catastrophic dam failures and downstream flooding. Existing studies of dam-break floods in Indonesia are typically limited to single-dam case analyses or theoretical models. Consequently, no comprehensive empirical model exists to predict the flood inundation from dam failures across varied locations or dam types, particularly for vulnerable earth fill dams. The present study addresses this gap by analyzing 12 representative dams across Indonesia, spanning various regions, reservoir capacities, and hydrological settings, to develop an empirical relationship between the reservoir storage volume and downstream flood inundation area. By integrating structural variables (e.g., dam height, storage area, reservoir capacity) with hydrological factors, an empirical multi-dam volume–area inundation model is derived applicable to overtopping and piping failure scenarios. The results demonstrate that the dam height and reservoir size strongly influence the flood extent, and the proposed volume–area model can reasonably estimate the inundation areas for different collapse scenarios. This is the first multi-dam empirical flood inundation model in the Indonesian context. The findings provide improved insight into the dam failure impacts and offer a practical tool to enhance the risk assessment, guide emergency response planning, and inform the national dam safety policy.
Keywords:
rock-fill type, dam, reservoir storage volume, flood inundation, dam break analysisDownloads
References
A. Sawai and D. S. Shyamal, "Dam Break Analysis – Review of Literature," Mar 2020.
O. Derdous, L. Djemili, H. Bouchehed, and S. E. Tachi, "A GIS based approach for the prediction of the dam break flood hazard – A case study of Zardezas reservoir ‘Skikda, Algeria,’" Journal of Water and Land Development, vol. 27, no. 1, pp. 15–20, Nov. 2015.
S. K. Do et al., "Assessing Impacts of Hydropower Development on Downstream Inundation Using a Hybrid Modeling Framework Integrating Satellite Data-Driven and Process-Based Models," Water Resources Research, vol. 61, no. 3, Mar. 2025, Art. no. e2024WR037528.
L.-M. Albu, A. Enea, M. Iosub, and I.-G. Breabăn, "Dam Breach Size Comparison for Flood Simulations. A HEC-RAS Based, GIS Approach for Drăcșani Lake, Sitna River, Romania," Water, vol. 12, no. 4, Apr. 2020, Art. no. 1090.
S. Shin, Y. Pokhrel, and G. Miguez-Macho, "High-Resolution Modeling of Reservoir Release and Storage Dynamics at the Continental Scale," Water Resources Research, vol. 55, no. 1, pp. 787–810, Jan. 2019.
C. Mo et al., "Simulation of one-dimensional dam-break flood routing based on HEC-RAS,” Frontiers in Earth Science, vol. 10, Jan. 2023.
M. G. Tedla, Y. Cho, and K. Jun, "Flood Mapping from Dam Break Due to Peak Inflow: A Coupled Rainfall–Runoff and Hydraulic Models Approach," Hydrology, vol. 8, no. 2, Jun. 2021, Art. no. 89.
S. Chaudhari and Y. Pokhrel, "Alteration of River Flow and Flood Dynamics by Existing and Planned Hydropower Dams in the Amazon River Basin," Water Resources Research, vol. 58, no. 5, Apr. 2022, Art. no. e2021WR030555.
J. Prasad, "Baur dam breach analysis using various manning’s roughness values, " International Journal of Hydrology, vol. 4, no. 6, pp. 293–297, Dec. 2020.
A. Soukhaphon, I. G. Baird, and Z. S. Hogan, "The Impacts of Hydropower Dams in the Mekong River Basin: A Review," Water, vol. 13, no. 3, Jan. 2021, Art. no. 265.
M. M. Abu-Abdullah, A. M. Youssef, N. H. Maerz, E. Abu-AlFadail, H. M. Al-Harbi, and N. S. Al-Saadi, "A Flood Risk Management Program of Wadi Baysh Dam on the Downstream Area: An Integration of Hydrologic and Hydraulic Models, Jizan Region, KSA," Sustainability, vol. 12, no. 3, Jan. 2020, Art. no. 1069.
A. Sánchez-Gómez, S. Martínez-Pérez, F. M. Pérez-Chavero, and E. Molina-Navarro, "Optimization of a SWAT model by incorporating geological information through calibration strategies," Optimization and Engineering, vol. 23, no. 4, pp. 2203–2233, Dec. 2022.
A. Bharath, A. V. Shivapur, C. G. Hiremath, and R. Maddamsetty, "Dam break analysis using HEC-RAS and HEC-GeoRAS: A case study of Hidkal dam, Karnataka state, India, " Environmental Challenges, vol. 5, Dec. 2021, Art. no. 100401.
R. Asmaranto and V. Dermawan, “Bankfull capacity analysis on the downstream Pekalen River due to the latest design flood,” ARPN Journal of Engineering and Applied Sciences, pp. 1858–1868, Oct. 2023.
L. M, "Dam Break Analysis using HEC-RAS: A Case Study of Karjan Dam, " INTERANTIONAL JOURNAL OF SCIENTIFIC RESEARCH IN ENGINEERING AND MANAGEMENT, vol. 06, Jun. 2022.
K. Khosravi, M. Rostaminejad, J. R. Cooper, L. Mao, and A. M. Melesse, "Chapter 31 - Dam break analysis and flood inundation mapping: The case study of Sefid-Roud Dam, Iran," in Extreme Hydrology and Climate Variability, A. M. Melesse, W. Abtew, and G. Senay, Eds. Elsevier, 2019, pp. 395–405.
E. Andreadakis et al., "Unmanned Aerial Systems-Aided Post-Flood Peak Discharge Estimation in Ephemeral Streams, " Remote Sensing, vol. 12, no. 24, Jan. 2020, Art. no. 4183.
F. A. Rini, L. M. Limantara, and S. Wahyuni, "Analisis Penentuan Nilai Parameter Alfa Model Hidrograf Satuan Sintetis Nakayasu Pada DAS Kampili Provinsi Sulawesi Selatan," B.Eng. thesis, Dept. of Water Resources Engineering, Brawijaya University, Malang, Indonesia, 2020.
K. E. Milleanisa, P. T. Juwono, R. Asmaranto, and M. Ayu, "Dam Break Analysis of Gembong Dam Using Zhong Xing HY21," IOP Conference Series: Earth and Environmental Science, vol. 930, no. 1, Sep. 2021, Art. no. 012091.
P. T. J. Gagah Guntur Aribowo, "The Risk-Level Change of Dam Break Due to the Population Growth in the Dam Downstream, " Journal of Hunan University Natural Sciences, vol. 50, no. 1, pp. 219–227, Jan. 2023.
Y. Niu and F. A. Shah, "Economics of Optimal Reservoir Capacity Determination, Sediment Management, and Dam Decommissioning," Water Resources Research, vol. 57, no. 7, Jun. 2021, Art. no. e2020WR028198.
R. Prajapati, J. Gardner, T. Pavelsky, and R. Talchabhadel, "Longitudinal Recovery of Suspended Sediment Downstream of Large Dams in the US," Water Resources Research, vol. 60, no. 6, Jun. 2024, Art. no. e2023WR036759.
K. M. Kibler and M. Alipour, "Flow alteration signatures of diversion hydropower: An analysis of 32 rivers in southwestern China," Ecohydrology, vol. 10, no. 5, Feb. 2017, Art. no. e1846.
U. Vegad and V. Mishra, "Climate change and effectiveness of dams in flood mitigation in India." Research Square, Mar. 2025.
J. Kriaučiūnienė and D. Šarauskienė, "Uncertainty Estimation in the Modeling of a Flood Wave Caused by a Dam Failure in a Hydropower System with Pumped Hydro Energy Storage," Sustainability, vol. 16, no. 9, Jan. 2024, Art. no. 3528.
M. E. Mohammad, N. Al-Ansari, S. Knutsson, and J. Laue, "A numerical study of pumping effects on flow velocity distributions in Mosul Dam reservoir using the HEC-RAS model," Lakes & Reservoirs: Science, Policy and Management for Sustainable Use, vol. 25, no. 1, pp. 72–83, Aug. 2020.
C. Mazivanhanga, R. C. Grabowski, E. Pérez-Sánchez, and V. R. Carballo-Cruz, "Analysis of scaling relationships for flood parameters and peak discharge estimation in a tropical region," Hydrology Research, vol. 55, no. 2, pp. 161–179, Jan. 2024.
N. Rivers-Moore, S. Mantel, P. Ramulifo, and H. Dallas, "A disconnectivity index for improving choices in managing protected areas for rivers," Aquatic Conservation: Marine and Freshwater Ecosystems, vol. 26, no. S1, pp. 29–38, Jun. 2016.
T. b. Ayalew, W. f. Krajewski, R. Mantilla, and D. l. Zimmerman, "Can floods in large river basins be predicted from floods observed in small subbasins?, " Journal of Flood Risk Management, vol. 11, no. 3, pp. 331–338, Oct. 2018.
L. Gaál et al., "Dependence between flood peaks and volumes: a case study on climate and hydrological controls," Hydrological Sciences Journal, vol. 60, no. 6, pp. 968–984, Jun. 2015.
S. Liu, J. Chen, J. Li, T. Li, H. Shi, and B. Sivakumar, "Building a large dam: identifying the relationship between catchment area and slope using the confidence ellipse approach," Geoscience Letters, vol. 10, no. 1, Jan. 2023, Art. no. 4.
J. Á. Aranda and R. García-Bartual, "Effect of Seasonality on the Quantiles Estimation of Maximum Floodwater Levels in a Reservoir and Maximum Outflows," Water, vol. 12, no. 2, Feb. 2020, Art. no. 519.
L. Gaál et al., "Flood timescales: Understanding the interplay of climate and catchment processes through comparative hydrology," Water Resources Research, vol. 48, no. 4, Apr. 2012.
V. Gupta, "Scaling Theory of Floods for Developing a Physical Basis of Statistical Flood Frequency Relations," in Oxford Research Encyclopedia of Natural Hazard Science, 2017.
A. Rizaldi et al., "ASSESSMENT OF FLOOD PROPAGATION DUE TO SEVERAL DAMS BREAK IN BANTEN PROVINCE," GEOMATE Journal, vol. 20, no. 81, pp. 185–190, Nov. 2021.
C. M. Mateo et al., "Assessing the impacts of reservoir operation to floodplain inundation by combining hydrological, reservoir management, and hydrodynamic models," Water Resources Research, vol. 50, no. 9, pp. 7245–7266, Aug. 2014.
T. Zhou, Z. Liu, J. Jin, and H. Hu, "Assessing the Impacts of Univariate and Bivariate Flood Frequency Approaches to Flood Risk Accounting for Reservoir Operation," Water, vol. 11, no. 3, Mar. 2019, Art. no. 475.
P. A. Owusu, S. N. Odai, F. O. Annor, and K. A. Adjei, "Reservoir storage for managing floods in urban areas: a case study of Dzorwulu basin in Accra," Hydrological Processes, vol. 27, no. 11, pp. 1615–1625, Mar. 2012.
I. R. Karim, Z. F. Hassan, H. H. Abdullah, and I. A. Alwan, "2D-HEC-RAS Modeling of Flood Wave Propagation in a Semi-Arid Area Due to Dam Overtopping Failure," Civil Engineering Journal, vol. 7, no. 9, pp. 1501–1514, Sep. 2021.
J. Sanyal, "Uncertainty in levee heights and its effect on the spatial pattern of flood hazard in a floodplain," Hydrological Sciences Journal, vol. 62, no. 9, pp. 1483–1498, Jul. 2017.
X. Gao, X. Chen, T. W. Biggs, and H. Yao, "Separating Wet and Dry Years to Improve Calibration of SWAT in Barrett Watershed, Southern California," Water, vol. 10, no. 3, Mar. 2018, Art. no. 274.
V. Mishra, S. Aaadhar, H. Shah, R. Kumar, D. R. Pattanaik, and A. D. Tiwari, "The Kerala flood of 2018: combined impact of extreme rainfall and reservoir storage," Hydrology and Earth System Sciences Discussions, pp. 1–13, Sep. 2018.
S. Suresh et al., "Satellite-based Tracking of Reservoir Operations for Flood Management during the 2018 Extreme Weather Event in Kerala, India," Hydrology and Earth System Sciences Discussions, pp. 1–34, Aug. 2023.
R. F. Hasan, M. Seyedi, and R. Alsultani, "Assessment of Haditha Dam Surface Area and Catchment Volume and Its Capacity to Mitigate Flood Risks for Sustainable Development," Mathematical Modelling of Engineering Problems, vol. 11, no. 7, pp. 1973–1978, Jul. 2024.
N. Adamo, N. Al-Ansari, S. Knutsson, J. Laue, and V. Sissakian, "Mosul Dam: A Catastrophe Yet to Unfold," Engineering, vol. 9, no. 3, pp. 263–278, Mar. 2017.
M. Dasgupta and S. Das, "Extreme Flood Flow Routing for Panchet and Maithan Reservoirs of India Using Modified Puls Technique," Water, vol. 16, no. 5, Jan. 2024, Art. no. 663.
S. Shin et al., "High Resolution Modeling of River-Floodplain-Reservoir Inundation Dynamics in the Mekong River Basin," Water Resources Research, vol. 56, no. 5, Apr. 2020, Art. no. e2019WR026449.
R. M. Almeida et al., "Limnological effects of a large Amazonian run-of-river dam on the main river and drowned tributary valleys," Scientific Reports, vol. 9, no. 1, Nov. 2019, Art. no. 16846.
M. S. Badawy, S. A. Saleh, and M. R. Abbood, "Suggested Scenarios of Initial Filling for the Badush Reservoir, Iraq," Tikrit Journal of Engineering Sciences, vol. 30, no. 4, pp. 134–144, Dec. 2023.
Downloads
How to Cite
License
Copyright (c) 2025 Runi Asmaranto, Pitojo Tri Juwono, Ridho Nur Aziz Rastanto
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.
Authors who publish with this journal agree to the following terms:
- Authors retain the copyright and grant the journal the right of first publication with the work simultaneously licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution License that allows others to share the work with an acknowledgement of the work's authorship and initial publication in this journal.
- Authors are able to enter into separate, additional contractual arrangements for the non-exclusive distribution of the journal's published version of the work (e.g., post it to an institutional repository or publish it in a book), with an acknowledgement of its initial publication in this journal.
- Authors are permitted and encouraged to post their work online (e.g., in institutional repositories or on their website) after its publication in ETASR with an acknowledgement of its initial publication in this journal.
