Mapping Local and Metacoupled Vulnerabilities of Aging Dams

Keywords: Dams, Metacoupling, Participatory Mapping, Geospatial Modeling
Abstract Type: Paper Abstract

Abstract

There are nearly 90,000 dams in the US that are decades old and many are at risk of failure due to deteriorating structural risks with age, climate change impacts, or a combination of these factors. If these dams were to fail, there would be disastrous impacts, not only for populations, ecosystems, and critical infrastructures immediately downstream in the inundation zone, but also further removed from the dam. These local and distant impacts can be conceptualized and represented geospatially using a framework of metacoupling, which simultaneously examines socio-economic and ecological interactions across scales. A case study of El Vado Dam in northern New Mexico reveals that the estimated inundation zone has minimal immediate impacts to critical infrastructure, vulnerable communities, and ecosystems due to the isolated location of El Vado Dam on the Rio Chama. However, interviews with local stakeholders of El Vado reveal far broader and detrimental potential cascading and network impacts if the dam were to fail. Comparing perceived vulnerabilities identified through participatory mapping with inundation models using geospatial visualizations highlights the need to evaluate potential metacoupled impacts in addition to local or proximate vulnerabilities.