Consequences and LifeSim: An Overview for Dam Owners and Dam Safety Practitioners

Registration Closed

August 17, 2023 10am MDT

This webinar intends to briefly revisit the key elements of life loss consequence analysis and provide a connection to how each of those key elements is incorporated into LifeSim to estimate life loss. The presentation will also touch on dam safety economic considerations by highlighting the economic consequences that can be assessed using LifeSim. Lastly, this overview will include a discussion of how the results of consequence analysis performed in LifeSim can help answer important dam owner and dam safety practitioner questions, especially within a risk-informed decision-making framework.

Stephanie Owen

Geosyntec Consultants, Inc.

Ms. Owen is the lead of Geosyntec’s consequences practice where she primarily supports dams, levees, and tailings dams projects through consequences, economic, and risk analyses. Prior to joining Geosyntec in October 2022, she spent the last 7 years working as an economist at the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers (USACE) where she supported a variety of projects ranging from flood risk management to inland navigation to dam and levee safety. She is an expert in USACE’s software LifeSim which is used for simulating the warning and evacuation process and estimating potential life loss and direct economic damages resulting from catastrophic floods. As such, she worked alongside her USACE colleagues in instructing Consequences and Lifesim Workshops as well as contributed to the validation studies, research and development, documentation, and beta-testing of the software. Additionally, Ms. Owen has been involved in multiple dam and levee risk assessments as an subject matter expert and is involved in the ongoing development of a USSD white paper outlining the state of the practice.