The paper outlines the basic concepts of an Earthquake Early Warning (EEW) system applied to earth dams. Past experience indicates that vulnerability of earth dams is generally low under both static and seismic loading conditions. In spite of this, a high risk level is associated to dams because of their high exposure factor. Soon after a strong earthquake, the authorities in charge of earth dam safety act completely unprepared to face the emergency, due to the lack of pre-arranged predictive/interpretative tools. This highlights the need for automated systems suitable to convert monitoring data in dam safety assessment. Nowadays the application of early warning systems to dams is fully supported by the technological progress achieved in the telecommunication field, since it is possible to install and automate recordings and transmission of all physical variables significant to check dam safety. However, a considerable lack still arises in the predictive models for interpreting monitoring data and providing indicators on dam safety soon after an earthquake. © The authors and ICE Publishing: All rights reserved, 2015