{"id":521302,"date":"2020-10-07T05:03:00","date_gmt":"2020-10-07T05:03:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.webuildvalue.com\/?p=521302"},"modified":"2020-11-02T10:03:14","modified_gmt":"2020-11-02T10:03:14","slug":"the-water-behind-the-walls","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.webuildvalue.com\/en\/infrastructure\/the-water-behind-the-walls.html","title":{"rendered":"Reservoirs: from Lake Kariba to Lake Nasser"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
\"Lake<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

It is a paradox that will never cease to impress: the fact that some of the most invasive works on the planet do not easily reveal themselves.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It is a paradox\nthat will never cease to impress: the fact that some of the most invasive works\non the planet do not easily reveal themselves.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It is as if\nthese enormous feats of engineering<\/a> \u2013 for all\ntheir steel and concrete – are nothing more than an extension of nature.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Some dams \u2013 but, in\nparticular, the artificial\nreservoirs<\/strong> that they create – manage to blend into their\nsurroundings to such an extent that they become part of their environment.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It is a paradox that will never cease to impress: the fact that some of the most invasive works on the planet do not easily reveal themselves.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Lake Kariba: the world\u2019s biggest reservoir<\/strong><\/h3>\n\n\n\n

Lake Kariba<\/strong> is the largest artificial reservoir\nin the world by volume<\/strong>. Located between Zambia and Zimbabwe, it\ncontains 180 billion cubic metres of water and covers a surface area of 5,500\nsquare kilometres. It is 280 kilometres long and, at its widest point, spans 30\nkilometres. It has 102 small islands, while the Matusadona National Park graces\none of its shores.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The lake is the result of a double-arch\ncement dam<\/strong> located in a gorge along the Zambesi River. Built between 1956\nand 1960 by a consortium whose members were predecessors of Salini\nImpregilo, the dam was the first project in Africa to be financed by the\nWorld Bank.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Such was its importance at the time that its inauguration was attended by the Queen Mother of Great Britain. Although its main purpose is to produce electricity (some 6,400 GWh a year), the lake that it created has become a veritable tourist attraction.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Bratsk reservoir: the Russian reservoir <\/h3>\n\n\n\n

The world\u2019s second largest reservoir<\/strong>\u00a0with 169 billion cubic metres of water\u00a0came into being in 1967<\/strong>\u00a0following the construction of the Bratsk dam on the Angara River in Siberia, Russia. \u00f9The dam, which for a time after its construction was designated the largest in the world, inspired poet Yevgeny Yevtushenko to write about it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Biggest<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Nasser Lake: the reservoir in Egypt <\/h3>\n\n\n\n

With its more than 160 billion cubic metres of water, Lake\nNasser<\/strong> is the third largest reservoir<\/strong>, thanks to the High Aswan Dam\non the Nile River in Egypt. It is 550 kilometres long and 35 kilometres at\nits widest point. It covers 5,250 square kilometres. It is named after Gamal\nAdbel Nasser, one of Egypt\u2019s first presidents.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The dam\u2019s construction led UNESCO to oversee a project to save the Abu Simbel temples<\/a> from being submerged by the waters of the future reservoir. With contributions from 113 countries, participants in the project like Impregilo, a predecessor of Salini Impregilo, dismantled the temples and reassembled them on higher ground.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Lake Volta<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

Ghana\nis home to Lake Volta<\/strong>, the fourth largest artificial reservoir<\/strong> by\nvolume at 150 billion cubic metres. Created by the Akosombo Dam on the Volta\nRiver, it has a surface area of 8,500 square kilometres or 3.6% of the African\ncountry\u2019s territory. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The rockfill dam with a clay core is 134 metres high with a crest length of about 700 metres. Along the lakeshore is the Digya National Park, known for its primates, elephants and more than 230 species of birds.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Lake Manicouagan<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

The\nfifth largest body of water <\/strong>came into being after the construction of the Daniel-Johnson Dam in\nQuebec, Canada. <\/strong>It contains up to 140 billion cubic metres of\nwater. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Its formation is unusual since it has the large Ren\u00e9-Levasseur Island in the middle of it – so unusual that the ring that the water forms around the island has earned the area the nickname\u00a0\u201cEye of Quebec\u201d<\/strong>. The dam itself is a record-maker. It is the highest multiple-arch-and-buttress dam in the world.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

It is a paradox that will never cease to impress: the fact that some of the most invasive works on the planet do not easily reveal themselves. It is a paradox that will never cease to impress: the fact that some of the most invasive works on the planet do not easily reveal themselves. It […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":108528,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[36],"tags":[19018,19003,19000,12216],"yst_prominent_words":[3244,3234,117,4152,3237,17417],"class_list":["post-521302","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-infrastructure","tag-energy-development","tag-global-investments","tag-renewable-energies","tag-water"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.webuildvalue.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/521302","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.webuildvalue.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.webuildvalue.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.webuildvalue.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.webuildvalue.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=521302"}],"version-history":[{"count":13,"href":"https:\/\/www.webuildvalue.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/521302\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":543202,"href":"https:\/\/www.webuildvalue.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/521302\/revisions\/543202"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.webuildvalue.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/108528"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.webuildvalue.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=521302"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.webuildvalue.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=521302"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.webuildvalue.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=521302"},{"taxonomy":"yst_prominent_words","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.webuildvalue.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/yst_prominent_words?post=521302"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}