Low Head Dam Fatalities Data 1900 to August 2025

Authors

Rollin H. Hotchkiss, Brigham Young University - Provo
Edward William Kern
John Guymon, NumetricFollow
Paige A. Gordichuk, Brigham Young UniversityFollow

Keywords

Low head dam, Submerged hydraulic jump, Public Safety

Data Set Description Summary

This dataset documents fatalities at low head dams in the United States between 1900 and August 2025. The records were compiled between 2012 and 2025 by research assistants at Brigham Young University under the direction of Dr. Rollin Hotchkiss. Data were incorporated into the database from Dr. Bruce Tschantz, Charlie Walbridge of the American Whitewater Association, public submissions through a “Report an Incident” form, and publicly available sources, including newspaper archives and public records. Originally stored in a MySQL database and later transferred to Google Sheets, the August 2025 version was exported to Excel. The purpose of the dataset is to raise awareness about the dangers of low head dams and encourage remediation efforts.

BYU ScholarsArchive Citation

Hotchkiss, Rollin H.; Kern, Edward William; Guymon, John; and Gordichuk, Paige A., "Low Head Dam Fatalities Data 1900 to August 2025" (2025). ScholarsArchive Data. 90.
https://scholarsarchive.byu.edu/data/90

Document Type

Data

Publication Date

2025-08-28

Data Collection Start Date

2012

Data Collection End Date

27-8-2025

College

Ira A. Fulton College of Engineering

Department

Civil and Environmental Engineering

University Standing at time of data collection

Junior

Copyright Use Information

https://lib.byu.edu/about/copyright/

Creative Commons License

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.