Full Title: Modernizing Probable Maximum Precipitation Estimation
Author(s): National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine
Publisher(s): The National Academies Press
Publication Date: June 25, 2024
Full Text: Download Resource
Description (excerpt):
For more than 75 years, high-hazard structures in the U.S., including dams and nuclear power plants, have been engineered to withstand floods resulting from the most unlikely but possible precipitation, termed Probable Maximum Precipitation (PMP). Failure of any one of the more than 16,000 high-hazard dams and 50 nuclear power plants in the United States could result in the loss of life and impose significant economic losses and widespread environmental damage, especially under the pressures of climate change. While PMP estimates have provided useful guidance for designing critical infrastructure, weaknesses in the scientific foundations of PMP, combined with advances in understanding, observing, and modeling extreme storms, call for fundamental changes to the definition of PMP and the methods used to estimate it.