The power sector has undergone a liberalization process both in industrialized and developing countries, involving market regimes, as well as ownership structure. These processes have called for new and innovative concepts, affecting both the operation of existing hydropower plants and transmission facilities, as well as the development and implementation of new projects. At the same time a sharper focus is being placed on environmental considerations. In this context it is important to emphasize the obvious benefits of hydropower as a clean, renewable and sustainable energy source. It is however also relevant to focus on the impact on the local environment during the planning and operation of hydropower plants. New knowledge and methods have been developed that make it possible to mitigate the local undesirable effects of such projects. Development and operation of modern power systems require sophisticated technology. Continuous research and development in this field is therefore crucial to maintaining hydropower as a competitive and environmentally well-accepted form of power generation.

By the year 2000, the world had built more than 45,000 large dams to irrigate crops, generate power, control floods in wet times and store water in dry times. Yet, in the last century, large dams also disrupted the ecology of half the world's rivers, displaced tens of millions of people from their homes and left nations burdened with debt. Their impacts have inevitably generated growing controversy and conflicts. Resolving their role in meeting water and energy needs is vital for the future and illustrates the complex development challenges that face our societies. The Report of the World Commission on Dams: - is the product of an unprecedented global public policy effort to bring governments, the private sector and civil society together in one process - provides the first comprehensive global and independent review of the performance and impacts of dams - presents a new framework for water and energy resources development - develops an agenda of seven strategic priorities with corresponding criteria and guidelines for future decision-making. Challenging our assumptions, the Commission sets before us the hard, rigorous and clear-eyed evidence of exactly why nations decide to build dams and how dams can affect human, plant and animal life, for better or for worse. Dams and Development: A New Framework for Decision-Making is vital reading on the future of dams as well as the changing development context where new voices, choices and options leave little room for a business-as-usual scenario.

The creation of river dams and the storage of water have been a strategy for survival for many centuries. Reservoirs have diverse functions, providing irrigation, water supply, storage of water, flood control, navigation and power generation. The silting of a reservoir is an unavoidable process. Although it cannot be halted, silting can be slowed down and controlled by a variety of soil conservation practices and by modifying agricultural practices in the catchment area. Other methods of reducing silting include the placing of certain engineering structures in the river system and the introduction of adequate strategies of reservoir operation. Silting and Desilting of Reservoirs includes aspects such as hydraulics, sediment transport, silting, sediment distribution, calculation and prediction of silting and solutions to reservoir silting.

A Guide to the Reservoirs Act 1975 provides expert guidance on the application of the Reservoirs Act 1975, reflecting the current views and practices of the dam engineering profession. This fully updated second edition incorporates the latest amendments to the Flood and Water Management Act, reflecting a more risk-based approach to reservoir regulation. These approaches include reducing the capacity at which a reservoir will be regulated from 25,000m3 to 10,000m3, and ensuring that only these reservoirs assessed as a higher risk are subject to regulation.

Dams As Aid brings together key issues in the aid/environment/development debate. Through her examination of dams, Usher sheds light on wider issues of the political economy of aid.
Detailed analysis of dams and aid case studies are included, particularly on Nordic dams which provide most graphic illustrations, and these detailed case studies are located within a broad comparative and theoretical perspective.

This study contributes to the understanding of the mechanisms and processes of sand bypassing in artificial and non-artificial coastal environments through a numerical modelling study. Sand bypassing processes in general is a relevant but poorly understood topic. This study attempts to link the theory and physics of sand bypassing processes which is significantly important in definition of coastal sedimentary budget. The main question is how can we model sand bypassing processes and whether the modelled sand bypassing processes represent the actual sand bypassing processes. In this study, it is shown that a process-based model can be used to simulate the processes of sand bypassing around groyne and headland structures. Both hypothetical and real case studies were successfully developed. Results comparisons were made among analytical models, empirical models and field data measurements. In general, the process-based model can produce reasonable results. In summary, through numerical modelling this study reveals the importance of understanding coastal processes and the role of geological controls in governing headland sand bypassing processes and embayed beach morphodynamics. The morphological model developed in this study is useful to increase understanding of the natural sand distribution patterns due to combination of engineering efforts and natural coastal processes.

Geotechnical Engineering of Dams, 2nd edition provides a comprehensive text on the geotechnical and geological aspects of the investigations for and the design and construction of new dams and the review and assessment of existing dams. The main emphasis of this work is on embankment dams, but much of the text, particularly those parts related to geology, can be used for concrete gravity and arch dams. All phases of investigation, design and construction are covered. Detailed descriptions are given from the initial site assessment and site investigation program through to the preliminary and detailed design phases and, ultimately, the construction phase. The assessment of existing dams, including the analysis of risks posed by those dams, is also discussed. This wholly revised and significantly expanded 2nd edition includes a lengthy new appendix on the assessment of the likelihood of failure of dams by internal erosion and piping. This valuable source on dam engineering incorporates the 200+ years of collective experience of the authors in the subject area. Design methods are presented in combination with their theoretical basis, to enable the reader to develop a proper understanding of the possibilities and limitations of a method. For its practical, well-founded approach, this work can serve as a useful guide for professional dam engineers and engineering geologists and as a textbook for university students.

Overview of Japan's long water history, by the Japanese Commission on large dams. Starting from the 7th century, when irrigation ponds were first constructed for paddy cropping, until the beginning of the 21st century. Elaborates on various roles of dams: water supply, power generation and flood control. Moreover, tries to clarify the negative impacts of dams on the natural environment and local societies, as well as extensive efforts made to minimize these impacts. Includes appendices with location and characteristics of main dams, administrative organs, river management system and water resources development river systems and facilities to offer the full picture. Richly-illustrated. Intended for dam and water resources professionals.

Reservoir operation is a multi-objective optimization problem, and is traditionally solved with dynamic programming (DP) and stochastic dynamic programming (SDP) algorithms. The thesis presents novel algorithms for optimal reservoir operation, named nested DP (nDP), nested SDP (nSDP), nested reinforcement learning (nRL) and their multi-objective (MO) variants, correspondingly MOnDP, MOnSDP and MOnRL. The idea is to include a nested optimization algorithm into each state transition, which reduces the initial problem dimension and alleviates the curse of dimensionality. These algorithms can solve multi-objective optimization problems, without significantly increasing the algorithm complexity or the computational expenses. It can additionally handle dense and irregular variable discretization. All algorithms are coded in Java and were tested on the case study of the Knezevo reservoir in the Republic of Macedonia. Nested optimization algorithms are embedded in a cloud application platform for water resources modeling and optimization. The platform is available 24/7, accessible from everywhere, scalable, distributed, interoperable, and it creates a real-time multiuser collaboration platform. This thesis contributes with new and more powerful algorithms for an optimal reservoir operation and cloud application platform. All source codes are available for public use and can be used by researchers and practitioners to further advance the mentioned areas.

Hydraulic research is developing beyond traditional civil engineering, since the number of natural hazards increased in recent years, and so did the extent and scope of structural safety assessment and environmental research. Hydraulic Engineering II contains 44 technical papers from the 2nd SREE Conference on Hydraulic Engineering (CHE 2013, Hong Kong, 2-3 November 2013, including the Third SREE Workshop on Environment and Safety Engineering, WESE 2013), discusses recent advances and issues, and identifies challenges associated with engineering applications in hydraulic engineering. The contributions showcase recent developments in the areas of hydraulic engineering and environmental engineering, and other related fields. The sections on hydraulic engineering mainly focus on river engineering and sediment transport, flood hazards and innovative control measures, rainfall modelling, dam safety, slope stability, environmental hydraulics and hydrology, while the contributions related to environmental issues focus on environmental prediction and control techniques in environmental geoscience, environmental ecology, water pollution and ecosystem degradation, applied meteorology, coastal engineering, safety engineering and environmental pollution control. Hydraulic Engineering II will be invaluable to academics and professionals in both hydraulic and environmental engineering.

Floods are one of the most common and widely distributed natural risks to life and property worldwide. There is a need to identify the risk of flooding in flood prone areas to support decisions for flood management from high level planning proposals to detailed design. An important part of modern flood risk management is to assess vulnerability to floods. This assessment can be done only by using a parametric approach. Worldwide there is a need to enhance our understanding of vulnerability and to also develop methodologies and tools to assess vulnerability. One of the most important goals of assessing flood vulnerability is to create a readily understandable link between the theoretical concepts of flood vulnerability and the day-to-day decision-making process and to encapsulate this link in an easily accessible tool. The present book portrays a holistic parametric approach to be used in flood vulnerability assessment and this way to facilitate the consideration of system impacts in water resources decision-making. The approach was verified in practical applications on different spatial scales and comparison with deterministic approaches. The use of flood vulnerability approach can produce helpful understanding into vulnerability and capacities for using it in planning and implementing projects.

Overview of Japana (TM)s long water history, by the Japanese Commission on large dams. Starting from the 7th century, when irrigation ponds were first constructed for paddy cropping, until the beginning of the 21st century. Elaborates on various roles of dams: water supply, power generation and flood control. Moreover, tries to clarify the negative impacts of dams on the natural environment and local societies, as well as extensive efforts made to minimize these impacts. Includes appendices with location and characteristics of main dams, administrative organs, river management system and water resources development river systems and facilities to offer the full picture. Richly-illustrated. Intended for dam and water resources professionals.

In the last one hundred years, a number of catastrophic events associated with rockslide dam formation and failure have occurred in the mountain regions of the world. This book presents a global view of the formation, characteristics and behaviour of natural and artificial rockslide dams. Chapters include a comprehensive state-of-the-art review of our global understanding natural and artificial rockslide dams, overviews of approaches to rockslide dam risk mitigation, regional studies of rockslide dams in India, Nepal, China, Pakistan, New Zealand, and Argentina. Rockslide dams associated with large-scale instability of volcanoes are also examined. Detailed case histories of well-known historic and prehistoric rockslide dams provide examples of investigations of rockslide dam behaviour, stability, and characteristics. The formation and behaviour of rockslide-dammed lakes ("Quake Lakes") formed during the 2008 Wenchuan Earthquake, China are also comprehensively summarised. The formation, sedimentology and stability of rockslide dams is examined in several analytical papers. An analysis of break-out floods from volcanogenic lakes and hydrological methods of estimating break-out flood magnitude and behavior are reviewed. The use of remote sensing data in rockslide-dammed lake characterisation is explored and a new approach to the classification of rockslide dams is introduced. Finally, a unique section of the book summarises Russian and Kyrgyz experience with blast-fill dam construction in two papers by leading authorities on the technology. The volume contains 24 papers by 50 authors from 16 countries including most of the recognised world authorities on the subject.

Breakwaters and closure dams belong to the most spectacular hydraulic structures. They are exposed to the most severe loading by waves and currents, either during their construction, or during their life cycle.
Design and construction of these structures are so vitally interrelated that a proper understanding requires a thorough knowledge of the theory and a proper understanding of practical matters.
This book offers an essential, integrated combination of theory and practice to the graduate student. Beginning with a description of the functional requirements, it discusses the relevant theory and shows the application of experience and theoretical knowledge to the design.

This book aims to develop the ideas from fundamentals of percolation theory to practical reservoir engineering applications. Through a focus on field scale applications of percolation concepts to reservoir engineering problems, it offers an approximation method to determine many important reservoir parameters, such as effective permeability and reservoir connectivity and the physical analysis of some reservoir engineering properties. Starring with the concept of percolation theory, it then develops into methods to simple geological systems like sand-bodies and fractures. The accuracy and efficiency of the percolation concept for these is explained and further extended to more complex realistic models.Percolation Theory in Reservoir Engineering primarily focuses on larger reservoir scale flow and demonstrates methods that can be used to estimate large scale properties and their uncertainty, crucial for major development and investment decisions in hydrocarbon recovery.

Among development assistance agencies, the World Bank has led the way in policies to mitigate the impact of large-scale engineering projects on local populations, particularly in the building of dams. Since the 1980s the Bank has implemented guidelines for policies with respect to displacement, social infrastructure and services, environmental effects, resettlement, compensation, and the restoration of income for those affected. Having learned from the failures of past resettlement programs, the Bank has endeavored to function as a responsible and caring agency. This volume builds upon earlier studies and field work to offer a broad look at dam-building projects in six countries and to review the outcomes of Bank policy, learn from experience, and assess outside criticism.
The book covers representative dam projects in India, Thailand, Togo, China, Indonesia, and Brazil. Each project was undertaken after Bank resettlement guidelines had been implemented. The widely ranging results in each country are assessed. In the areas of compensation for acquired land, relocation, infrastructure and services, the contributors note satisfactory levels of improvement or positive trends. Governments are moving towards acceptance of the idea that displaced families should be paid the real value of their lost assets. Relocation processes are now keeping pace with water movement caused by dam building, and health, education, utilities, and roads are better than before the resettlement.
Other results have been less positive. The impact on incomes of those involuntarily resettled has been harsh in some locations. Resettler dissatisfaction has been intense, notably in those countries where the national economies are not experiencing strong growth. The Bank's performance itself has been uneven. There have been lapses in appraisal and monitoring during the projects and insufficient follow-through support for resettlement operations after the completion of loan and credit disbursements.
In addition to its case by case analysis of countries and projects, the book includes detailed lessons and recommendations to strengthen resettlement policy and practice. Involuntary Resettlement will be of interest to economists, sociologists, and professionals working in regional development policy.
Robert Picciotto is director general of Operations Evaluation at the World Bank. Warren van Wicklin is task manager and evaluator at the Operations Evaluation department of the World Bank.

Fundamentals of Applied Reservoir Engineering introduces early career reservoir engineers and those in other oil and gas disciplines to the fundamentals of reservoir engineering. Given that modern reservoir engineering is largely centered on numerical computer simulation and that reservoir engineers in the industry will likely spend much of their professional career building and running such simulators, the book aims to encourage the use of simulated models in an appropriate way and exercising good engineering judgment to start the process for any field by using all available methods, both modern simulators and simple numerical models, to gain an understanding of the basic 'dynamics' of the reservoir -namely what are the major factors that will determine its performance. With the valuable addition of questions and exercises, including online spreadsheets to utilize day-to-day application and bring together the basics of reservoir engineering, coupled with petroleum economics and appraisal and development optimization, Fundamentals of Applied Reservoir Engineering will be an invaluable reference to the industry professional who wishes to understand how reservoirs fundamentally work and to how a reservoir engineer starts the performance process.

An engaging oral history of the 31ers who built Hoover Dam and the women who fed them, married them, and shared their lives. Building Hoover Dam is the most intriguing book yet written about one of the modern architectural wonders of the world. Andrew J. Dunar and Dennis McBride skillfully interweave first hand accounts of a fascinating group of eyewitnesses. Their stories create the richest existing portrait of the building of Hoover Dam and its tremendous effect on the lives of those involved in its creation: the gritty, sometimes grisly realities of living in cardboard boxes and tents during several of the hottest Southern Nevada summers still on record; the fearsome carbon monoxide deaths of tunnel builders who, it was claimed, had died of ""pneumonia""; the uproarious life of nearby Las Vegas versus the tightly controlled existence of the workers in the built-overnight confines of Boulder City; and of course the astounding accomplishment of building the dam itself and completing the task not only early but under budget.

Since its construction in the early 1960s, the hydroelectric Akosombo Dam across the Volta River has exemplified the possibilities and challenges of development in Ghana. Drawing upon a wealth of sources, A Dam for Africa investigates contrasting stories about how this dam has transformed a West African nation, while providing a model for other African countries. The massive Akosombo Dam is the keystone of the Volta River Project that includes a large manmade lake 250 miles long, the VALCO aluminum smelter, new cities and towns, a deep-sea harbor, and an electrical grid. On the local level, Akosombo has meant access to electricity for people in urban and industrial areas across southern Ghana. For others, Akosombo inflicted tremendous social and environmental costs. The dam altered the ecology of the Lower Volta, displaced 80,000 people in the Volta Basin, and affected the livelihoods of hundreds of thousands of Ghanaians. In A Dam for Africa, Stephan Miescher explores four intersecting narratives: Ghanaian debates and aspirations about modernization in the context of decolonization and Cold War; international efforts of the US aluminum industry to benefit from Akosombo through cheap electricity for their VALCO smelter; local stories of upheaval and devastation in resettlement towns; and a nation-wide quest toward electrification and energy justice during times of economic crises, droughts, and climate change.

Dynamic programming is a method of solving multi-stage problems in which decisions at one stage become the conditions governing the succeeding stages. It can be applied to the management of water reservoirs, allowing them to be operated more efficiently. This is one of the few books dedicated solely to dynamic programming techniques used in reservoir management. It presents the applicability of these techniques and their limits on the operational analysis of reservoir systems. The dynamic programming models presented in this book have been applied to reservoir systems all over the world, helping the reader to appreciate the applicability and limits of these models. The book also includes a model for the operation of a reservoir during an emergency situation. This volume will be a valuable reference to researchers in hydrology, water resources and engineering, as well as professionals in reservoir management.

Prescribed Form of Record for a Large Raised Reservoir is fully updated to incorporate the latest amends to the Reservoirs Act. Supervising engineers are required to verify that works recommended by the inspecting engineer are being carried out and complete a `prescribed form of record'. This updated edition of the Prescribed Form provides the ability to detail information about the reservoir such as water levels and depth, volume, dam crest height, and details of leakages and repairs.

In the last one hundred years, a number of catastrophic events associated with rockslide dam formation and failure have occurred in the mountain regions of the world. This book presents a global view of the formation, characteristics and behaviour of natural and artificial rockslide dams. Chapters include a comprehensive state-of-the-art review of our global understanding natural and artificial rockslide dams, overviews of approaches to rockslide dam risk mitigation, regional studies of rockslide dams in India, Nepal, China, Pakistan, New Zealand, and Argentina. Rockslide dams associated with large-scale instability of volcanoes are also examined. Detailed case histories of well-known historic and prehistoric rockslide dams provide examples of investigations of rockslide dam behaviour, stability, and characteristics. The formation and behaviour of rockslide-dammed lakes ("Quake Lakes") formed during the 2008 Wenchuan Earthquake, China are also comprehensively summarised. The formation, sedimentology and stability of rockslide dams is examined in several analytical papers. An analysis of break-out floods from volcanogenic lakes and hydrological methods of estimating break-out flood magnitude and behavior are reviewed. The use of remote sensing data in rockslide-dammed lake characterisation is explored and a new approach to the classification of rockslide dams is introduced. Finally, a unique section of the book summarises Russian and Kyrgyz experience with blast-fill dam construction in two papers by leading authorities on the technology. The volume contains 24 papers by 50 authors from 16 countries including most of the recognised world authorities on the subject.

Water demand in southern Africa continues to rise, as urban areas expand and as agricultural water demand rises to meet the millennium development food security goals. Water resource availability in the northern Limpopo Basin has declined over the last 30 years, and will decline further under climate change. In this study, water resources modelling is used to quantify the effect of water resources strategies and climatic conditions on water resources availability. This is coupled with water balance modelling to evaluate the potential of alluvial aquifers, which form the beds of sand rivers. The greatest benefit for the least impact comes from strategies providing for better land and soil/water management, such as changing from maize to small grains, production of livestock fodder and conservation agriculture. Small dams are a key resource to rural communities, and change to Multiple Use Systems through abstraction of water for irrigation has clear benefits locally. There is also great potential for the exploitation of alluvial aquifers for water supply. Better management of existing large dams, together with conjunctive use of alluvial groundwater and several reservoirs could increase productive use of water and significantly improve livelihoods without the construction of new reservoirs.