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Experts under the microscope: the Wivenhoe Dam case

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Abstract

Prosecution of experts in the wake of disasters has emerged as common in the context of increasing social intolerance of risk. This paper examines expert blame using as a case study the decisions of engineers who operated Wivenhoe Dam during the Queensland floods in January 2011 and the criticisms of those decisions by the subsequent Commission of Inquiry. Our analysis draws on the literature on organisational safety, organisational learning and expertise to examine the relevance of the criteria against which the engineers were judged, the relevant competence of those who made this assessment and the broader implications of such exercises. Our analysis shows that lay judgements of expert practice can be misleading, as evidenced by the Commission of Inquiry’s misguided focus on procedural adherence. We argue that such inquiries—where the focus is on assigning blame—detract from opportunities to learn from incidents and can negatively impact on professional practices. If the aim is to make future disasters less likely, then inquiries that take this approach may be failing in this endeavour, or at least not maximising their contribution.

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Acknowledgments

Some of the ethnographic research on which this article draws was funded by the Energy Pipelines Cooperative Research Centre, supported through the Australian Government’s Cooperative Research Centres Program. The cash and in-kind support from the Australian Pipeline Industry Association Research and Standards Committee is gratefully acknowledged.

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  1. The Australian National University, Acton, ACT, Australia

    Sarah Maslen & Jan Hayes

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  1. Sarah Maslen
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  2. Jan Hayes
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Correspondence to Sarah Maslen.

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Maslen, S., Hayes, J. Experts under the microscope: the Wivenhoe Dam case. Environ Syst Decis 34, 183–193 (2014). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10669-014-9492-7

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