Evolution of dam from ancient time to modern time.

1. EVOLUTION
OF
DAMS

2. INTRODUCTION
Dams are massive barriers built across rivers and streams to confine
and utilize the flow of water for human purposes. These purposes may
be Irrigation, Hydropower, Water-supply, Flood Control, Navigation,
Fishing and Recreation. This confinement of water creates lakes or
reservoirs.

3. ANCIENT DAMS
• The earliest known dam is the Jawa
Dam in Jordan, 100 kilometres (62
mi) northeast of the capital Amman.
• This gravity dam featured an
originally 9-metre-high (30 ft) and 1
m-wide (3.3 ft) stone wall, supported
by a 50 m-wide (160 ft) earth
rampart.
• The structure is dated to 3000 BC

4. ANCIENT DAMS
Sadd-el-Kafara Dam,
Egypt
2800-2600 BC
Kallanai Dam, India
2nd century AD
One of the oldest water-diversion or water-
regulator structures in the world which is still
in use.

5. MESOPOTAMIA
• The 2nd type of dam known to have been built was an earth
dam(embankment dam) called Nimrod’s Dam.
• Mesopotamians built this dam around 2000 BC.
• Earth dams are massive dams similar to gravity dams except they are made
of soil and rocks.
• Nimrod’s dam was built across Tigris and was used to prevent erosion and
reduce the threat of flooding.
• The intention was to divert the flow in the river and help irrigate the crops.

6. ROMAN ENGINEERING
• Romans were the first civilization to use concrete and mortar in their
gravity dams.
• Due to large size and amount of building materials need to construct
these dams ,the arch dams was invented.
• The first known arch dam is Kebar, which was built in the Mongol
period.

7. ROMAN ENGINEERING
Remains of the Band-e Kaisar dam, Iran,
built by the Romans in the 3rd century
AD
The Roman dam at Cornalvo, Spain
has been in use for almost two
millennia.

8. 17th CENTURY
• Spain dam building was superior to all other civilization.
• A spainiard named Don Pedro wrote the first book on designing dams
in 1736.
• In Don Pedro’s time only two types of dams were built.
o Arch dams and gravity dams.
• Don pedro gives new ideas such as multiple arch dam.
• He suggested that multiple arch dams would need buttresses to
support the arch.
• This theory indirectly led to the invention of the buttress dam.

9. MULTIPLE ARCH DAM AND
BUTTRESS DAM

10. EARLY 19th CENTURY
Mir Alam dam, Hyderabad, India
Built in 1804 by Royal Engineers
,British Empire
Jones Falls Dam, Ontario Canada
When completed in 1832, the
Jones Falls dam was the largest
dam in North America
The 75-miles dam near
Warwick, Australia
Built in 1880
World's first concrete
arch dam

11. LARGE DAMS
• The era of large dams was initiated with the construction of the Aswan
Low Dam in Egypt in 1902 by the British.
• When initially constructed between 1899 and 1902, nothing of its scale had
ever been attempted.
• On completion, it was the largest masonry dam in the world.

12. HOOVER DAM
• The Hoover Dam is a massive concrete arch-gravity dam
• Constructed in the black canyon of the Colorado river, on the border
between the US states of Arizona and Nevada between 1931 and 1936.
• Such a large concrete structure had never been built before, and some
of the techniques were unproven.

13. THREE GORGES DAM, CHINA
The Three Gorges Dam, the hydroelectric dam is the world's largest power
station by installed capacity (22,500 MW)

14. PARAGUAY)
Itaipu is the hydroelectric plant that produces more energy in the world, setting a new
world 103,098,366 megawatt hour (MWh) record in 2016 and had surpassed the Three
Gorges Dam plant in 2016.

15. THANK YOU