Top 10 largest Dams in the World

Updated on August 16, 2022 22:13 PM by Dhinesh

A dam is a construction that is built across a river or stream to keep water from flowing downstream. Dams have been made with different materials for hundreds of years. Natural materials, such as rocks or clay, were used by ancient dam builders. Concrete is frequently used in modern dam construction. Dams built by humans create an artificial lakes known as reservoirs.

Dams and reservoirs can be used to completely manage floods by trying to regulate river water flows down the river. The dams are intended, built, and function by a particular plan to route floods through the basin while minimizing the damage to people's persons and livelihoods.

Safeguarding Water safety and massive infrastructure investment opportunities. Keeping people's lives and property safe downstream of dams. The probability of dams in India is expected to rise as the amount of dams ages.

A well-designed, well-constructed, well-maintained, and well-monitored embankment and tangible dam can easily last 100 years. After 30 to 50 years, hydromechanical components such as gates and one‘s engines must be supplanted.

Here is the list of the Top 10 largest Dams in the world.

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Tarbela Dam

Tarbela Dam, built in 1976, is not only one of Pakistan's most famous dams but also the country's largest man-made basin. With a height of around 470 feet (143 meters), it is also one of the world's largest Dam in the world.

Tarbela Dam was built in three stages to accommodate the river's deflection prerequisites. The Italian firm Salini Impregilo was in charge of the building. The Tarbela Dam (map), built in 1974, is the nation's biggest earth- and rock-filled framework, standing nearly 500 feet tall and ning the Indus River for 9,000 feet.

The Tarbela Dam was constructed with five original tunnels, the first three of which were dedicated to hydropower generation and the second set to irrigated agriculture. The first of the water application tunnels are used in the fourth step project, while the second is used in the fifth phase extension.

Tarbela Dam is a massive rock-fill dam on Pakistan's Indus River. It was constructed between 1968 and 1976 and has a volume of 138,600,000 cubic yards.

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Three Gorges Dam

The Three Gorges Dam is a hydroelectric gravity dam that s the Yangtze River near Sandouping in Yiling District, Yichang, Hubei Province, central China, downstream of the Three Gorges. Since 2012, the Three Gorges Dam has been the world's largest Dam and power station by generation capacity.

The name "Three Gorges" refers to three limited gorges through which the Yangtze River flows in this mountainous region: the Qutang, Wu, and Xiling. The reservoir began filling in June 2003, after beginning construction in 1992.

The dam allows ocean-going big ships to navigate and generates hydroelectric power. It was also aimed to do is provide flood defenses, but its effectiveness in this regard is unclear and has been discussed. The Three Gorges Dam, located near Yichang, Hubei Province, China, s the Yangtze River.

Benefits of The Three Georges Dam Flood control, electricity production, route planning, aquaculture, tourism, environment conservation, environmental purifying, advancement relocation, water exchange from southern China to northern China, and water supply and irrigation are all advantages of the Three Gorges Dam.

Kariba Dam

The Kariba Dam is a cementitious arch dam with a double curvature in the Zambezi River basin between Zambia and Zimbabwe. The dam is 128 meters high and 579 meters long. The dam creates Lake Kariba, which s 280 kilometers and holds 185 cubic kilometers of water.

In terms of storage capacity, the Kariba Dam is the world's largest dam. The dam, located in the former Kariwa (Kariba) Gorge, creates Lake Kariba, which has a storage space of 185 billion cubic meters of water and a surface of 5,580km2.

The Kariba Dam wall is a feat of engineering, and Lake Kariba is a holiday hotspot, created to hold back the fantastic power of one of Africa's biggest rivers and create hydroelectricity for ever-growing demand. However, it did not come without some cost. It enters the Indian Ocean at Quelimane, Mozambique. It flows for approximately 2650 kilometers from its headwaters to the Indian Ocean. It is Africa's fourth largest river, flowing into the Indian Ocean. The Kariba Dam is about halfway down the Zambezi River.

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The Oahe Dam

The Oahe Dam is a large earthen dam on the Missouri River in South Dakota, just north of Pierre. Lake Oahe, the fourth-largest man-made reservoir in the United States, is formed by the dam. The reservoir extends 231 miles up the Missouri River to Bismarck, North Dakota.

The Oahe Dam on the Missouri River northwest of Pierre started building in 1948. The dam and its surrounding buildings took ten years and more than 93 million cubic yards of dirt, rock, and concrete to construct. The final closing occurred on August 3, 1958. The Oahe Dam, located just six miles north of Pierre and Fort Pierre, is one of the world's largest dams.

Syncrude Tailing Dam

The Syncrude Tailings Dam, which impounds the Mildred Lake Settling Basin, is a hydroelectric dam that was the largest earth structure in the world by volume of building material in 2001.

Tailings dams are used to store water and waste generated by the mining process. It is estimated that worldwide has at least 3,500 tailings dams. Syncrude is a joint venture operated by Suncor that is based in Fort McMurray, Alberta, and has a huge marketing facility in Edmonton.

It is known for groundbreaking many of the procedures used in the sector, along with an expansive suite of innovations to enhance the environmental and future performance of the economy.

Bratsk Dam

Bratsk Dam is a gravity earth-fill dam on Russia's Angara River that was finished in 1964. At the crest, the reservoir is 410 feet (125 meters) high and 14,488 feet (4,417 meters) wide, with a volume of 14,337,000 cubic meters (10,962,000 cubic m).

The concrete dam of the Bratsk hydropower station was finished in 1967.

The Taishet-Lena railway line and a vehicle road are located on the dam's crest. Because Angara has no through ship routes, there are no navigation system channels. Nonetheless, the building project includes the option of constructing a ship elevator. The Bratsk dam is frequently referred to as the world's largest Dam.

Akosombo Dam

The Akosombo Dam, also recognized as the Volta Dam, is a hydroelectric dam on the Volta River in southeastern Ghana's Akosombo gorge that is operated by the Volta River Authority. The dam's construction flooded a portion of the Volta River Basin, resulting in the formation of Lake Volta.

The dam produces hydroelectricity and supplies water for irrigation of nearby cropland. The Akosombo Dam, also known as the Volta Dam, is located in southeast Ghana on the Volta River.

The configuration, which stands 124 meters tall and 660 meters long, holds back the waters of Lake Volta, the world's largest man-made lake by surface area. The dam generates hydroelectricity and provides water for irrigation of nearby cropland.

The Akosombo Dam, also known as the Volta Dam, is located on the Volta River in southeast Ghana. The framework, which stands 124m tall and 660m long, holds back the waters of Lake Volta, the world's largest man-made lake by surface area.

Aswan Dam

The Aswan Dam, or, more particularly, the Aswan High Dam since the 1960s, is the world's largest dam, built across the Nile in Aswan, Egypt, between 1960 and 1970. Its significance far outweighed that of the previous Aswan Low Dam, which was finished downriver in 1902.

Importance of Aswan Day - The Aswan High Dam, with a reservoir capacity of 132km3, provides water for approximately 33,600km2 of irrigated agricultural land.

It meets Egypt's and Sudan's irrigation requirements, controls flash floods, creates power, and aids in enhancing navigation across the Nile.

It can store up to 43,000,000 cubic meters (56,000,000 cu yd) of substance and has a hydroelectric plant with six turbines capable of producing 2.1 million kilowatts, making it one of Egypt's most essential sources of power and water.

Guri Dam

The Simón Bolvar Hydroelectric Plant, also known as the Guri Dam and originally known as the Ral Leoni Hydroelectric Plant, is tangible inertia and river bank dam on the Caroni River in Bolvar State, Venezuela, built between 1963 and 1969.

It is 7,426 meters long and 162 meters tall. The Guri Dam produces over 10,000 MW of electrical power, is the world's largest dam and operating hydroelectric central, and is the 8th largest water source for hydroelectric central to date.

It cost a total of USD 850 million (in 1960). The Guri Reservoir, which provides the dam, is one of the world's largest. The hydroelectric power station, which replaced Grand Coulee HPP, was once the world's largest in terms of installed capacity, but it was exceeded by Brazil's Itaipu and Paraguay's Itaipu.

Krasnoyarsk Dam

The Krasnoyarsk Dam is a 124-meter-high concrete hydroelectric dam on the Yenisey River in Divnogorsk, Russia, about 30 km away upstream from Krasnoyarsk. It was built between 1956 and 1972 and produces approximately 6,000 Mw of power, the majority of which is used to power the KrAZ.

It provides 6,000 Mw power, the majority of which is used to power the KrAZ (Krasnoyarsky Aluminievyy Zavod, Krasnoyarsk Aluminum Plant). The RUSAL company controls both the strength and aluminum plants.

The cost of developing the project and building the hydroelectric power plant and reservoir was 802.66 million rubles, such as 132.56 million rubles for the lake itself. The dam's backward country reaches a distance of 386 kilometers.

The powerhouse was the world's largest dam and power plant from the having opened of the 10th turbine in April 1972 until the Grand Coulee Dam in Washington state reached 6,181 MW in 1983.