Reassessment of the flood damage at a river diversion hydropower plant site: lessons learned from a case study

Despite the accumulated vast theoretical and practical knowledge on the flood-related topics, the lack of precautions taken against the natural disasters keeps causing fatality and property damage. In this study, a recent flood event in a run-of-river-type hydroelectric power plant in Tavsanli District of Kutahya was analyzed and the main reasons for the occurred damage were investigated. First, a stochastic approach was followed to obtain the essential parameters used in the design procedures. In support of the whole investigation, numerical simulation of the river flow was performed to analyze the river flow behavior using computational fluid dynamics method. In addition, geographical information system was implemented to understand the site-specific topography and its influence. Different types of analyses and fieldwork were combined and used to help reveal the actual scenario and showed that a non-catastrophic natural event resulted in a costly damage due to a chain of wrong actions (misinterpretation of the functions of certain safety structures and lack of taking precautions at the hill slopes) in the local implementation of the project. The damage initially was believed to be due to the rise in the water level in the nearby river. It is believed the picture presented here will be useful in amending arrangements to avoid such damages in the future for a large number of comparable power plants in Turkey.