The World’s Biggest Dam

Generally, dams are designed to retain water and are used to manage and prevent the water flow into particular areas. They are also used to store water and distribute evenly between locations. The world’s biggest dams are listed below:

• Kariba Dam

Kariba Dam is recognized as the biggest dam across the globe because of its capacity to store water. It is situated at the old Kariwa (Kariba) Gorge in Zimbabwe. As a result of the dam, Lake Kariba was created and able to store 185 billion cubic metres of water capacity with 5,580 km square in surface area. The dam was constructed by Impresit of Italy between 1955 and 1959. The purpose of the dam is to avert one in 10,000 year flood occurrence.

• Bratsk Dam

Bratsk Dam is located in Siberia, Russia and known as the second biggest dam across the world with 169.27 billion cubic metres reservoir. It is 125 metres high and the length is 1,452 meters. It was constructed by Bratsgesstroy between 1954 and 1964. The dam confiscates the Angara River and the reservoir covers a surface area of 5,540 km square.

• Akosombo Dam

This is the third biggest dam located in Ghana. Akosombo Dam was constructed by Impregilo of Italy between 1961 and 1966 on the Volta River and creates 8,500 km square Lake Volta recognized as the biggest reservoir in the world due to its surface area. Lake Volta confiscates a mammoth 144 billion cubic metres of water. The primary purpose of Akosombo Dam is to generate electricity and provide livelihood for almost 300,000 people through the fisheries in the lake.

• Daniel Johnson Dam

This dam is also called Manic 5 Dam and located in Canada. Daniel Johnson dam confiscates Manicouagan River to create Manicouagan reservoir with storage capacity of about 139.8 billion cubic metres. It is the fourth biggest dam in the world. It was constructed between 1959 and 1968 but owned by Hydro-Quebec. It has two power stations.

• Guri Dam

Guri is the fifth biggest dam in the world with storage capacity of 135 billion cubic metres. It is situated in Venezuela and creates Guri Lake that covers 4,000 km square. The construction of Guri dam was carried out in two stages between 1963 and 1986.

• Aswan High Dam

Aswan dam is the sixth biggest dam and was classified as this due to the capacity of its water storage. It impounds River Nile to create Lake Nasser. Aswan High Dam is located in Egypt. Lake Nasser which serves as the reservoir of the dam has a water capacity storage of 132 billion cubic metres. The dam is filled with rock and was constructed from 1960 to 1968 with great investment of about a billion dollar. Aswan High Dam is for multipurpose; controls flooding, improve navigation all over Nile, irrigation for both Egypt and Sudan and as well as to generate electricity.

• A.C Bennett Dam

W.A.C Bennett Dam was constructed in Canada on the Peace River in British to create Lake Williston. The is ranked as the seventh biggest dam in the world with storage capacity of nearly 74 billion cubic metres and this covers 1,773 km square surface area. The construction of W.A.C Bennett dam was between 1961 and 1967. The power generating station at W.A.C Bennett Dam is known as G.M Shrum Generating Station.

• Krasnoyarsk Dam

Krasnoyarsk dam is the eighth biggest dam in the world confiscated with Yenisey River to create Krasnoyarskoye reservoir. The storage capacity if 73.3 billion cubic metres and the reservoir cover the surface area of about 2,000 km square. The constructed was between 1956 and 1972. The purpose of the dam is to power aluminium plants owned by RUSAL Company. It is also used for irrigation purpose.