The mandatory reporting of reservoir incidents in England

Abstract

The Environment Agency first developed a specification for recording incidents at reservoirs and undertaking investigations in 2006. The system provided the means for any serious incident to be reported on a voluntary basis, recorded in a central database and investigated if appropriate. In 2013, incident reporting became mandatory for statutory reservoirs located in England and Wales. This paper considers the success of mandatory reporting based on information available for incidents at English reservoirs. Statistics on the rate of reporting by major reservoir undertakers are presented together with data on incident reporters by role. The paper raises concern regarding the likely completeness of reporting of incidents at statutory reservoirs in England and the challenges of identifying incidents that occur at non-statutory reservoirs. Considering recommendations in the UK government's independent review of reservoir safety in 2021, the paper explores the future challenges that will be faced in ensuring the reservoir industry effectively documents and learns from UK reservoir incidents.