关键词: 大坝, 系统, 大坝失事

Abstract: Nassim Taleb's book, The Black Swani, argues that there are rare events that have never been encountered before and therefore cannot be anticipated. He further argues that since we cannot anticipate these events we cannot assess the risks they represent until after such an event has occurred. In essence he argues that there are cases where the epistemic uncertainty, the lack of fundamental knowledge, is 100% and any attempt to analyze and assess the associated risk is hopeless. The terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001 on the World Trade Center Buildings in New York are often characterized as Black Swan events as are many dam failures.
Studies of dam failures and safety related incidents shows that most were not caused by a single, easily analyzed, component failure or an extreme loading condition but rather by interactions between various components and subsystems. To assess the safety of a dam in a more complete manner we must use tools that allow the analysis of system failure modes and use our knowledge and imagination to hypothesize system failure modes that we are unaware of. In other words, we must imagine the Black Swans. 
By utilizing concepts embodied in systems engineering techniques we can take a more holistic approach to dam safety than is possible under the more common standards or risk-informed approaches. This paper discusses systemic contributions to dam failures and ways researchers are developing methodologies to analyze system failure modes and assess the associated risks.

Key words: dam, system, dam failure