This session report discusses 13 papers that were presented at the 8th International conference on physical modelling in geotechnics 2014 in the session 'Dams, embankments and slope protection'. It concentrates on whether scaling is possible and what the consequences of scaling are in the various papers. Some tests do not really appear to be scaled model tests, because it is difficult to define prototype that behaves as the model. However, such models can still be useful to study mechanisms that are relevant in prototype