Merowe Dam

The Merowe Dam, also known as Merowe High Dam, Merowe Multi-Purpose Hydro Project or Hamdab Dam, is a large dam near Merowe Town in northern Sudan, about 350 kilometres (220 mi) north of the capital Khartoum. Its dimensions make it the largest contemporary hydropower project in Africa. It is situated on the river Nile, close to the 4th Cataract where the river divides into multiple smaller branches with large islands in between. Merowe is a city about 40 kilometres (25 mi) downstream from the construction site at Hamdab. The main purpose for building the dam was the generation of electricity.

Technical details

The dam has a length of about 9 kilometres (5.6 mi) and a crest height of up to 67 metres (220 ft). It consists of concrete-faced rockfill dams on each river bank (the right bank dam is the largest part of the project, 4.3 km long and 53m high; the left bank is 1590 metres long and 50 metres high), an 883-metre (2,897 ft)-long 67-metre (220 ft)-high earth-core rockfill dam (the 'main dam') in the left river channel, and a live water section in the right river channel (sluices, spillway and a 300-metre power intake dam with turbine housings). It contains a reservoir of 12.5 cubic kilometres (10,100,000 acre·ft), or about 20% of the Nile's annual flow; the intended reservoir level is 300 metres above sea level, with the Nile level downstream of the dam being about 265 metres. The reservoir lake is planned to extend 174 kilometres (108 mi) upstream.