Jahon news agency reported that the 79th session of ICOLD was held in Luzern, Switzerland, on 28 May – 3 June. The delegation of National Committee on Large Dams represented Uzbekistan at the session.

As reported earlier, the Government of Uzbekistan adopted decision on creation of National Committee of Large Dams, which will represent interests of the country at the ICOLD.

The report said that President, Secretary General and other Board member of ICOLD congratulated Uzbekistan with official accession to the organization and wished success to work of National Committee in its endevours.

ICOLD was founded in 1928 and has National Committees from 92 countries with approximately 10 000 individual members. The ICOLD is a non-governmental International Organization which provides a forum for the exchange of knowledge and experience in dam engineering.

Within the session, the international symposium titled “Dams and Reservoirs under changing Challenges” was held.

The Uzbek delegation provided information on measures, adopted in Uzbekistan, to ensure security of hydraulic engineering establishments (HEE), legislative and institutional foundations for state policy in the sector, etc. It was said Uzbekistan is only country in Central Asia, where security issues of HEE are raised to state policy.

In their speeches, foreign specialists indicated to importance of security of the HEE and other infrastructure of objects in context of recent accident at Fukusima-1 atomic power station. The security aspects should be key in designing, construction and use of large dams.

Reports of experts from Norway and Japan about impact of tsunami and earthquakes to large dams attracted interest of participants. F.Lovholt said that mankind is weak against natural disasters despite development of engineering science. Large accidents were recorded in Italy and Norway, which took lives of thousand people and damaged infrastructure and economy. He said that number of such accidents will increase further due to climate change and added that 6% of large dams are under risk of tsunami.

Japanese experts N. Matsumoto and Y. Yamaguchi spoke about impact of earthquake to security of large dams. They said that 48 dams in Japan suffered in the result of earthquakes. They said that in the result of earthquake in March 2011, Fuidjinuma dam was broken.