For decades, large dam projects have been undertaken by both nations and international agencies with the aim of doing good: preventing floods, bringing electricity to rural populations, producing revenues for poor countries, and more. But time after time, the social, economic, and environmental costs have outweighed the benefits of the dams, sometimes to a disastrous degree. In this volume, a diverse group of experts-involved for years with the Nam Theun 2 dam in Laos-issue an urgent call for critical reassessment of the approach to, and rationale for, these kinds of large infrastructure projects in developing countries. In the 2000s, as the World Bank was reeling from revelations of past hydropower failures, it nonetheless promoted the enormous Nam Theun 2 project. NT2, the Bank believed, offered a new, wiser model of dam development that would alleviate poverty, protect the environment, engage locally affected people in a transparent fashion, and stimulate political transformation. This was a tall order. For the first time, this book shows in detail why, despite assertions of success from the World Bank and other agencies involved in the project, the dam's true story has been one of substantial loss for affected villagers and the regional environment. Nam Theun 2 is an important case study that illustrates much broader problems of global development policy.

Hydraulic gates are utilized in multiple capacities in modern society. As such, the failure of these gates can have disastrous consequences, and it is imperative to develop new methods to avoid these occurrences. Dynamic Stability of Hydraulic Gates and Engineering for Flood Prevention is a critical reference source containing scholarly research on engineering techniques and mechanisms to decrease the failure rate of hydraulic gates. Including a range of perspectives on topics such as fluid dynamics, vibration mechanisms, and flow stability, this book is ideally designed for researchers, academics, engineers, graduate students, and practitioners interested in the study of hydraulic gate structure.

This book gathers contributions from the 15th ICOLD Benchmark Workshop on Numerical Analysis of Dams. The workshop provided an opportunity for engineers, researchers and operators to present and exchange their experiences and the latest advances in numerical modelling in the context of the design, performance and monitoring of dams. Covering various aspects of computer analysis tools and safety assessment criteria, and their development over recent decades, the book is a valuable reference resource for those in the engineering community involved in the safety, planning, design, construction, operation and maintenance of dams.

This unique volume discusses various aspects of the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam (GERD) and the Aswan High Dam (AHD) including their positive and negative impacts. It presents up-to-date research findings by Egyptian scientists and researchers covering several interesting hot topics under the following main themes: * Major impacts of GERD compared with the AHD * Environmental impacts of the AHD * Modeling scenarios investigating the impacts of GERD on the AHD and downstream * Environmental and social impacts of GERD on Egypt * Status and assessment of the sediment of the AHD reservoir and modeling the impacts of GERD on Lake Nubia sediment accumulation * Proposed scenarios for maximizing the benefits of the AHD reservoir * International aspects of GERD and the AHD The volume also offers a set of conclusions and recommendations to optimize the cooperation between Egypt, Sudan, and Ethiopia. It appeals to postgraduate students, researchers, scientists, professionals and policy planners.

This reservoir-engineering textbook is a contemporary analysis of primary recovery. It covers rock and fluid properties, reservoir energies, surface separation, laboratory PVT methods, material balance, fluid flow, well deliverability, water influx, reservoir performance, and decline-curve analysis. Using an unified approach, the text includes the full range of reservoir fluids: black oils, volatile oils, gas condensates, wet gases, and dry gases. It also covers the entire range of producing mechanisms, including gas-cap, water-drive, and compaction-drive reservoirs.

Whispers from the depths is more than just the story of the building of the Kariba Dam in the mid-1950s. Built in just five years against overwhelming odds, the dam is a monument to engineering excellence. Shrouded in political undertones, the construction of the dam was vital for the hydro-electric power it would provide for Zambia’s burgeoning copper industry. Little thought, however, appears to have been given to the future of the human and animal populations who lived in the valley that would be inundated when the dam was completed. The question has to be asked: Was this awe-inspiring man-made creation achieved at too high a cost in terms of the human suffering and environmental devastation it caused? Central to the story of Kariba was the fate of the Tonga people who had for centuries lived in the Gwembe valley, due to be flooded when the sluice gates were finally closed to halt the flow of the mighty Zambezi River. Approximately 57 000 people were forced to move from their ancestral homes, abandoning family graves and spiritual sites to the depths of Kariba's water. They became a dispersed people who have never been able to reunite as a cohesive society, never again been able to live peacefully on the banks of the river which gave them life. Animals, too, perished in their thousands despite the gallant efforts of wildlife personnel who mounted a hastily planned rescue mission known as Operation Noah. Whispers from the depths gives a voice to the all but forgotten BaTonga. It celebrates their unique culture but deplores the price they paid for progress – a price from which they themselves derived no benefit whatsoever.

This book presents new approaches to security risk analysis and scenario building on the basis of water works such as flood barriers and storm surge barriers. Defending flood barriers is not only important because of climate change and rising sea levels, but also due to the vulnerability of fresh water supplies and the increasing number of people living in vulnerable low-lying river and sea deltas.

3rd edition. Describes the Bureau of Reclamation's experience in the design and construction of dams and control works. Illustrated throughout.

This proceedings book gathers contributions presented at the First International Conference on Embankment Dams (1st ICED, Beijing, 5-7 June 2020), which was the inaugural conference of the International Society of Soil Mechanics and Geotechnical Engineering (ISSMGE) Technical Committee TC210 on Embankment Dams. The contributions address five themes: (1) case histories on the failure of embankment dams and landslide dams; (2) dam failure process modelling; (3) soil mechanics for embankment dams; (4) dam risk assessment and management; and (5) monitoring, early warning and emergency response. These proceedings offer a unique resource that systematically presents recent dam breaching cases, their social impact, associated risk management strategies, and disposal methods for failed dams. It is an excellent reference guide for dam and levee engineers, flood safety officials, and emergency management agencies.

This book offers a timely report on methods for risk assessment procedures for dams, with a special emphasis on dams with small storage dimensions. It starts by introducing all important definitions relating to dams, dam safety, such as the most common failure modes, and risks. In turn, it describes in detail the most important evaluation procedures for various failure modes such as piping, flood, earthquake and stability are described in this chapter. Consequence assessment procedures, together with the different steps of the risk evaluation process, are analyzed, providing a guide on how to identify the appropriate failure mode for the examined dam and setting up the appropriate safety plan. The book introduces the most common methods for predicting peak breach discharge, analyzing some relevant case studies. Upon comparing the findings obtained with the different methods, the book concludes with some general suggestions and ideas for future developments. This book fills an important gap between theoretical works and real-life problems being investigating in practical research studies on dam safety and risk management. It provides readers with the necessary knowledge on risk analysis and shows how to apply this in practice to carry out dam safety studies. It offers practical guidelines to set up risk assessment procedures for different failure modes and predicting failure parameters such as failure time, peak breach discharge and breach width.

This book gives an up-to-date review on dam-break problems, along with the main theoretical background and the practical aspects involved in dam failures, design of flood defence structures, prevention measures and the environmental, social, economic, and forensic aspects related to the topic. Moreover, an exhaustive range of laboratory tests and modelling techniques is explored to deal effectively with shock waves and other disasters caused by dam failures. Disaster management refers to programs and strategies designed to prevent, mitigate, prepare for, respond to and recover from the effects of these phenomena. To manage and minimize these risks, it is necessary to identify hazards and vulnerability by means of a deep knowledge of the causes, which lead to dam failures, and to understand the flow propagation process. Knowledge and advanced scientific tools play a role of paramount importance in the strain of coping with flooding and other dam-break problems along with the capacity building in the context of political and administrative frameworks.All these aspects are featured in the book, which is a comprehensive treaty that covers the most theoretical and advanced aspects of structural and hydraulic engineering, together with the hazard assessment and mitigation measures and the social, economic and forensic aspects related to subject.

Nominated by Tsinghua University as an outstanding Ph.D. thesis, this book investigates the mechanical properties of unsaturated compacted clayey soil, the multi-field coupling consolidation theory of unsaturated soil and its application to a 261.5 m high earth-rockfill dam. It proposes a multi-field coupling analysis method of consolidation, and develops an efficient and practical finite element (FE) program for large-scale complex earth-rockfill dams. The book is primarily intended for researchers studying the multi-field coupling analysis of seepage consolidation.

Internal erosion and piping in embankments and their foundations is the main cause of failures and accidents to embankment dams. For new dams, the potential for internal erosion and piping can be controlled by good design and construction of the core of the dam and provision of filters to intercept seepage through the embankment and the foundations. Internal Erosion of Dams and their Foundations brings together a selection of the best reviewed papers from the Workshop on Internal Erosion and Piping of Dams and their Foundations, held in the spring of 2005 in Aussois, France. The book covers the whole internal erosion process, from initiation of erosion, continuation, progression to form a pipe, and formation of a breach. An overview chapter based on the Workshop describes the state of the art in the field and identifies research needs. This resource will be most valuable to dam engineers, researchers and students who are involved in assessing the safety of embankment dams with regard to internal erosion and piping.

Water resources stored by dams and reservoirs play an essential role in water resource management, hydropower and flood control. Where there is an extensive network of dam infrastructures, dams have made a major contribution to economic and social development, providing considerable storage capacity per capita. However, dams and reservoirs may also have an important social and environmental impact, and should be studied within the framework of integrated water resource management and sustainable development. Dams and Reservoirs, Societies and Environment in the 21st Century presents the latest research on the role played by dams and reservoirs in 21st century societies, in developed, emergent and developing countries. It analyses the viability of dams and suggests alternative solutions from a holistic perspective, considering the technical, economic, social and environmental aspects. Other issues covered include the social acceptability of dams, public involvement and dam awareness. The book covers subjects ranging from dam engineering, through the benefits and drawbacks of dams, to their social and environmental impact, and contains numerous case studies of the constructive contributions that reservoirs have made to water development and management. The book is a valuable resource for professional and dam engineers, water managers, governmental organizations and commercial enterprises responsible for dam development and management.

This book comprises the papers of the International Conference on Hydraulics of Dams and Rivers Structures, held in Tehran, 26-28 April 2004. The topics covered include air-water flows, intakes and outlets, hydrodynamic forces, energy dissipators, stepped spillways, scouring and sedimentation around structures, numerical approaches in river hydrodynamics, river response to hydraulic structures and hydroinformatic applications. This proceedings provides professionals and researchers with news of interdisciplinary research findings, considering future development of the sector in its many and various applications.

A book of broad interest to professionals, dam engineers and managers, and to organizations responsible for dam development and management, RCC Dams offers a topical account of the design and operation of roller compacted concrete dams, describing the latest developments and innovative technologies in the field. The book considers planning and design, materials and construction, as well as the operation and performance of RCC dams.

The book describes in twelve chapters the modern tools available for the detection and prevention of leaks from dams and reservoirs, including water chemistry, isotope analyses, artificial tracers, permeability tests, geophysical methods and techniques for the localization of water flows both inside the reservoir and boreholes. Numerous case studies are presented corresponding to studies of more than thirty dams performed by researchers in eighteen different countries.