A hydraulic structure is a facility designed for using water resources, as well as controlling the destructive effect of water. A dam, a hydroelectric power station, a drainage station, a drainage channel or, for example, a shipping lock can act in its role. Such buildings require careful monitoring according to various standards and regulations prescribed in GOST R 55260.1.4-2012 in order to avoid all types of emergency situations.

Monitoring the safety of hydraulic structures is a rather broad concept. It reveals the process of continuous monitoring of a facility throughout its entire life cycle in order to solve a whole set of critical tasks:

• ensuring continuous and uninterrupted operation of both the entire building and its single functional elements;
• monitoring status parameters and diagnostic criteria indicating the level of various risks;
• development and study of the effectiveness of single processes for ensuring accumulation and transfer of experience;
• monitoring the compliance with mandatory requirements in terms of fire and industrial safety.

The quality and quantity of monitoring procedures varies depending on the hazard class of hydraulic structures. For example, hydraulic structures of groups I, II and III need continuous and automatic monitoring.

These include earth dams and dams over 20 m high, flooding and dry docks, ice protection structures and sea berths. Hydropower complexes, such as hydroelectric power plants, also need monitoring.

Organizing monitoring the safety of hydraulic structures is a whole set of procedures with two primary objectives. The specialists responsible for its implementation must, firstly, ensure the safety of third parties and the environment, and secondly, predict and prevent any emergency situations.

It is possible to cope with such large-scale tasks through:

• collecting and accumulating reliable information about the technical condition and defects of the facility;
• performing comprehensive assessments of the compliance of the building key components with safety regulations;
• engineering study of technologies and methods for engineering protection of the facility with parallel calculation of the cost of repair and reconstruction work;
• monitoring and inspections of the allowability of operating buildings in various permitted and critical modes.

It is possible to establish literally continuous and fully automated supervision over a facility through various inspection and monitoring practices.

Any project for monitoring the safety of a hydraulic structure presents a clear scope of work. Data obtained from continuous inspections is subsequently used to create plans for preventing emergency situations and ensuring the normal functioning of the building.