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Exploring Dams: Structures, Functions, and History

This quiz tests your knowledge of dams, their history, types, and functions. Answer the questions and explore the fascinating world of these vital structures!

#dams #engineering #hydropower #environment #civil engineering #history

1 The first was built at Shustar on the River Karun, ________, and many of these were later built in other parts of the Islamic world.

2 A check dam is a small dam designed to reduce flow velocity and control ________.

3 What does the following picture show?  The sizable Roman Harbaqa Dam in Syria is 21 m high and 365 m long.   The San Luis Dam near Los Banos, California is an embankment dam.   Hydraulic turbine and electrical generator.   The Roman dam at Cornalvo in Spain has been in use for almost two millennia.

4 What does the following picture show?  Daniel-Johnson Dam at Manic 5 hydro-electric centrale, Quebec, Canada is a multiple arch dam.   Glen Canyon Dam   Hoover Dam, a concrete arch-gravity dam in Black Canyon of the Colorado River. Lake Mead in the background is impounded by the dam.   Red Ridge steel dam, b. 1905, Michigan.

5 The highest Roman dam was the Subiaco Dam near ________; its record height of 50 m remained unsurpassed until its accidental destruction in 1305.

6 A diversionary dam is a structure designed to divert all or a portion of the flow of a ________ from its natural course.

7 Rock-fill dams are resistant to damage from ________.

8 It has no fuel and low escape risk, and as an ________ source it is cheaper than both nuclear and wind power.

9 In ________, bridge dams were used to provide hydropower through water wheels, which often powered water-raising mechanisms.

10 What does the following picture show?  Gordon Dam, Tasmania is an arch dam.   Spillway on Llyn Brianne dam, Wales soon after first fill.   The Gilboa Dam in the Catskill Mountains of New York State is an example of a solid gravity dam.   Hoover Dam, a concrete arch-gravity dam in Black Canyon of the Colorado River. Lake Mead in the background is impounded by the dam.

💡 Interesting Facts

  • the Wallkill River is one of the few rivers that drains into a creek, because it is impounded just before the confluence.
  • the historic floodplains of Oregon's Willamette Valley ecoregion rarely function today, due to dams in the Upper Willamette Basin.
  • the Thornapple River has 5 dams, including one in Ada bought from Consumers Power for a dollar by a river property owners association.
  • the Jawa Dam in Jordan is the oldest known dam in the world, dating back to 3000 BC.
  • the ecosystem contained in Myanmar's N'Mai River watershed contains some of the most diverse flora of its type in the world, yet it is threatened with destruction through damming.
  • the largest ever dam raise in the United States is occurring at the San Vicente Dam in California, which will increase its height by 117 feet (36 m) and more than double its reservoir size.
  • the original Victoria Dam constructed in 1891 was the first dam in Western Australia, and it stood for almost 100 years before being replaced with the current dam.
  • when the Applegate River was dammed in 1980, the resulting lake (pictured) completely submerged the town of Copper.
  • there were only 3 steel dams built in the United States, although at one time steel dams were thought to offer many competitive advantages over other types of dam.
  • the world's tallest concrete-faced rockfill dam is Shuibuya Dam on the Qingjiang River in China.
  • the two dams and reservoir that form the Bull Run Hydroelectric Project will be decommissioned in 2008 due to the rising costs of meeting environmental laws.
  • the dam at Red Hills State Park was damaged by the 2008 Illinois earthquake.
  • remnants of a mill and dam, originally built in late Roman/early Byzantine period, can still be seen at the place of the depopulated Palestinian village of Al-Mirr.
  • about 63 dams with a capacity of over 100 million cubic metres account for 95% of the water storage capacity of Mexico.
  • a splash dam was a temporary wooden dam used to raise the water level in streams to float logs downstream to sawmills.
  • Magat Dam was at one time Southeast Asia's largest multipurpose dam.
  • Keewassee, a Potowatomi warrior, attempted to destroy a dam built by settler William Davis and was severely beaten with a hickory rod when caught.
  • if U.S.-based PacifiCorp decommissions the Condit Hydroelectric Project in 2008, Condit Dam will be the largest dam ever removed for environmental reasons.
  • if one of the dams of Ukraine's Dnieper River reservoirs is destroyed, it may cause radioactive contamination of the whole Black Sea area.
  • prominent Soviet Armenian finswimmer Shavarsh Karapetyan saved 20 people from a trolleybus that had fallen from a dam into the Erevan reservoir.
  • over 58,000 Paleo-Indian artifacts were unearthed at Lake Ilo National Wildlife Refuge in North Dakota when lake waters were lowered on the lake in 1989 to reconstruct a dam.
  • instead of voting to determine the site of a proposed hydroelectricity dam, tens of thousands of Tasmanians protested by writing "No Dams" on their ballot papers in the 1981 power referendum.
  • in 1987, the Elk Creek Dam's construction on Elk Creek was halted due to a court injunction issued over a lawsuit designed to protect salmon and other migratory fish from the effects of the dam on the river.
  • Cochiti Dam in New Mexico is one of the ten largest dams in the United States, the 23rd largest in the world, and the eleventh largest earthen dam worldwide.
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