Middle Ages: Band-E Kaisar

haracterized by "the Romans' ability to plan and organize engineering construction on a grand
scale."[13] Roman planners introduced the then-novel concept of large reservoir dams which could

secure a permanent water supply for urban settlements over the dry season.[14] Their pioneering use
of water-proof hydraulic mortar and particularly Roman concrete allowed for much larger dam
structures than previously built, [13] such as the Lake Homs Dam, possibly the largest water barrier to
that date,[15] and the Harbaqa Dam, both in Roman Syria. The highest Roman dam was the Subiaco
Dam near Rome; its record height of 50 m (160 ft) remained unsurpassed until its accidental
destruction in 1305.[16]
Roman engineers made routine use of ancient standard designs like embankment dams and
masonry gravity dams.[17] Apart from that, they displayed a high degree of inventiveness, introducing
most of the other basic dam designs which had been unknown until then. These include arch-gravity
dams,[18] arch dams,[19] buttress dams[20] and multiple arch buttress dams,[21] all of which were known
and employed by the 2nd century AD (see List of Roman dams). Roman workforces also were the
first to build dam bridges, such as the Bridge of Valerian in Iran.[22]
Remains of the Band-e Kaisar dam, built by the Romans in the 3rd century AD

In Iran, bridge dams such as the Band-e Kaisar were used to provide hydropower through water
wheels, which often powered water-raising mechanisms. One of the first was the Roman-built dam
bridge in Dezful,[23] which could raise water 50 cubits in height for the water supply to all houses in
the town. Also diversion dams were known.[24] Milling dams were introduced which the Muslim
engineers called the Pul-i-Bulaiti. The first was built at Shustar on the River Karun, Iran, and many of
these were later built in other parts of the Islamic world.[24] Water was conducted from the back of the
dam through a large pipe to drive a water wheel and watermill.[25] In the 10th century, Al-
Muqaddasi described several dams in Persia. He reported that one in Ahwaz was more than 910 m
(3,000 ft) long,[26] and that it had many water-wheels raising the water into aqueducts through which it
flowed into reservoirs of the city.[27] Another one, the Band-i-Amir dam, provided irrigation for 300
villages.[26]
Middle Ages
In the Netherlands, a low-lying country, dams were often applied to block rivers in order to regulate
the water level and to prevent the sea from entering the marsh lands. Such dams often marked the
beginning of a town or city because it was easy to cross the river at such a place, and often gave
rise to the respective place's names in Dutch.
For instance the Dutch capital Amsterdam (old name Amstelredam) started with a dam through the
river Amstel in the late 12th century, and Rotterdam started with a dam through the river Rotte, a
minor tributary of the Nieuwe Maas. The central square of Amsterdam, covering the original place of
the 800-year-old dam, still carries the name Dam Square or simply the Dam.
Industrial revolution
An engraving of the Rideau Canal locks at Bytown
The Romans were the first to build arch dams, where the reaction forces from the abutment
stabilizes the structure from the external hydrostatic pressure, but it was only in the 19th century that
the engineering skills and construction materials available were capable of building the first large-
scale arch dams.
Three pioneering arch dams were built around the British Empire in the early 19th century. Henry
Russel of the Royal Engineers oversaw the construction of the Mir Alam dam in 1804 to supply
water to the city of Hyderabad (it is still in use today). It had a height of 12 m (39 ft) and consisted of
21 arches of variable span.[28]
In the 1820s and 30s, Lieutenant-Colonel John By supervised the construction of the Rideau
Canal in Canada near modern-day Ottawa and built a series of curved masonry dams as part of the
waterway system. In particular, the Jones Falls Dam, built by John Redpath, was completed in 1832
as the largest dam in North America and an engineering marvel. In order to keep the water in control
during construction, two sluices, artificial channels for conducting water, were kept open in the dam.
The first was near the base of the dam on its east side. A second sluice was put in on the west side
of the dam, about 20 ft (6.1 m) above the base. To make the switch from the lower to upper sluice,
the outlet of Sand Lake was blocked off.[29]
Masonry arch wall, Parramatta, New South Wales, the first engineered dam built in Australia
Hunts Creek near the city of Parramatta, Australia, was dammed in the 1850s, to cater for the
demand for water from the growing population of the city. The masonry arch dam wall was designed
by Lieutenant Percy Simpson who was influenced by the advances in dam engineering techniques
made by the Royal Engineers in India. The dam cost £17,000 and was completed in 1856 as the first
engineered dam built in Australia, and the second arch dam in the world built to mathematical
specifications.[30]
The first such dam was opened two years earlier in France. It was the first French arch dam of
the industrial era, and it was built by François Zola in the municipality of Aix-en-Provence to improve
the supply of water after the 1832 cholera outbreak devastated the area. After royal approval was
granted in 1844, the dam was constructed over the following decade. Its construction was carried
out on the basis of the mathematical results of scientific stress analysis.
The 75-miles dam near Warwick, Australia, was possibly the world's first concrete arch dam.
Designed by Henry Charles Stanley in 1880 with an overflow spillway and a special water outlet, it
was eventually heightened to 10 m (33 ft).
In the latter half of the nineteenth century, significant advances in the scientific theory of masonry
dam design were made. This transformed dam design from an art based on empirical methodology
to a profession based on a rigorously applied scientific theoretical framework. This new emphasis
was centered around the engineering faculties of universities in France and in the United
Kingdom. William John Macquorn Rankine at the University of Glasgow pioneered the theoretical
understanding of dam structures in his 1857 paper On the Stability of Loose Earth. Rankine
theory provided a good understanding of the principles behind dam design. [31] In France, J. Augustin
Tortene de Sazilly explained the mechanics of vertically faced masonry gravity dams, and Zola's
dam was the first to be built on the basis of these principles. [32]
Large dams
The Hoover Dam by Ansel Adams, 1942

The era of large dams was initiated with the construction of the Aswan Low Dam in Egypt in 1902, a
gravity masonry buttress dam on the Nile River. Following their 1882 invasion and occupation of
Egypt, the British began construction in 1898. The project was designed by Sir William Willcocks and
involved several eminent engineers of the time, including Sir Benjamin Baker and Sir John Aird,
whose firm, John Aird & Co., was the main contractor.[33][34] Capital and financing were furnished
by Ernest Cassel.[35] When initially constructed between 1899 and 1902, nothing of its scale had ever
been attempted;[36] on completion, it was the largest masonry dam in the world. [37]
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 during the Great Depression. In 1928, Congress authorized the project to build a dam that
would control floods, provide irrigation water and produce hydroelectric power. The winning bid to
build the dam was submitted by a consortium called Six Companies, Inc. Such a large concrete
structure had never been built before, and some of the techniques were unproven. The torrid
summer weather and the lack of facilities near the site also presented difficulties. Nevertheless, Six
Companies turned over the dam to the federal government on 1 March 1936, more than two years
ahead of schedule.
By 1997, there were an estimated 800,000 dams worldwide, some 40,000 of them over 15 m (49 ft)
high.[38] In 2014, scholars from the University of Oxford published a study of the cost of large dams –
based on the largest existing dataset – documenting significant cost overruns for a majority of dams
and questioning whether benefits typically offset costs for such dams. [39]
Types of dams

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haracterized by "the Romans' ability to plan and organize engineering construction on a grand

scale."[13] Roman planners introduced the then-novel concept of large reservoir dams which could

Remains of the Band-e Kaisar dam, built by the Romans in the 3rd century AD

The Hoover Dam by Ansel Adams, 1942

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