Dam safety in Central Asia: Capacity-building and regional cooperation

ECONOMIC COMMISSION FOR EUROPE Geneva

Published in: 2001

Publisher: ECONOMIC COMMISSION FOR EUROPE Geneva

Region / Country: Central Asia

Topics: Dam Safety
Abstract:

The water management infrastructure of Central Asia comprises a multitude of reservoirs, dams, irrigation systems and pumping stations, a great number of canals and tens of multipurpose hydraulic projects. The highest dam in the world, the Nurek Dam, a rockfill dam of300 metres in height, is located on the Vakhsh River in Tajikistan, and one of the longest canals in the world – the Karakum Canal, with a length of more than 1,100 km, which contributes about half of the water used in Turkmenistan – originates from the transboundary Amu Darya River. Large dams occupy a special place in the water
management infrastructure of Central Asia. According to the classifi cation of the International Commission on Large Dams (ICOLD), dams of 15 metres and higher, as well as dams of 5 to 15 metres with water storage of no less than 3 million m3, are defi ned as large dams. Out of the more than 1,200 dams in the region, 110 are large dams; a list of these can be found in Annex 1. Many of these dams
are located in the basins of such transboundary rivers as the Amu Darya, the Syr Darya, the Ili and the Irtysh, and have inter-State signifi cance.

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