why are dams and reservoirs built?
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Dams and their reservoirs provide recreation areas for fishing and boating. They help people by reducing or preventing floods. ... During times of excess water flow, dams store water in the reservoir; then they release water during times of low flow, when natural flows are inadequate to meet water demand.
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Reservoirs are human-made lakes created by the damming of rivers to serve one or more purposes, such as hydropower production, water supply for drinking, irrigation and flood protection. Dams have been built in Europe for over hundreds of years.
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Dams are important because they provide water for domestic, industry and irrigation purposes. Dams often also provide hydroelectric power production and river navigation. Domestic use includes everyday activities such as water for drinking, cooking, bathing, washing, and lawn and garden watering.
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This is called hydroelectric power or hydropower. The most common type of hydroelectric power plant uses a dam on a river to store water in a reservoir. Water released from the reservoir flows through a turbine, spinning it, which in turn activates a generator to produce electricity.
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A dam is defined as a barrier or structure across a stream, river or waterway to confine and then control the flow of water. ... Dams are structures built to retain water by forming a reservoir behind the structure. These are usually built across, or near, naturally flowing water to manage the water for human use.
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Plants & animals. Dams are often constructed across rivers to store water that would naturally find its way to the lower reaches of the river and into the sea. ... The nature of the river flow downstream is changed. The dam can hold back sediment that normally finds its way downstream.
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The simple answer is that beavers build dams to deepen watercourses, so that they can create “lodges” that can be better defended from modern predators including bears, wildcats, otters and other mammalian forebears with whom the beavers shared prehistory. It seems that deep water is particularly important to beavers.
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Dams and Canals are forms of hydro-engineering, which fundamentally alters the landscape by changing the way in which water flows. The reasons may be for transportation, for creating arable land, or for hydroelectricity.
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Big dams are often considered as undemocratic. The significance of this line actually means that big dams are often very problematic. This is because, they stand at a higher risk of floods and it becomes very difficult to control the water flow.
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A reservoir is an artificial lake called man-made reservoir. It can be formed by building a dam across a valley, by excavating the land or by surrounding a piece of land with dykes and diverting a part of the river flow into the reservoir.
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Earth dikes and dams are gravity structures used to impound water or semi-fluid wastes. Water is impounded for flood control, hydroelectric power production, recreation, domestic storage, and industrial uses, including waste storage.
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Big Dams: Boon or Bane? Dams help control floods. They store water to irrigate fields and supply cities. They harness energy that generates electricity without consuming fossil fuels.
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['Dams are very expensive to construct and time consuming.', 'These projects initially devast human lives and biodiversity by inundating thousands of acres of forests and agricultural lands.', 'Deforestation takes place.', 'Increases risk of Earthquakes.', 'Block of fish migration.', 'Blocks sediments flow.', 'Upstream flooding.']
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Dams store water, provide renewable energy and prevent floods. Unfortunately, they also worsen the impact of climate change. They release greenhouse gases, destroy carbon sinks in wetlands and oceans, deprive ecosystems of nutrients, destroy habitats, increase sea levels, waste water and displace poor communities.
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['Dams can displace a significant number of people. ... ', 'Reservoirs behind a dam can lead to higher greenhouse gas emissions. ... ', 'This technology disrupts local ecosystems. ... ', 'Some river sediment is beneficial. ... ', 'Dams create a flooding risk if they experience a failure.']
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Of course yes big dams are necessary as they are helpful in preventing floods, stored water will be used for irrigation purposes and used for generating electricity. ... Dams are for supplying water for irrigation, prevention of floods and to generate electricity. Dams are the main source for water in dry areas.
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Dams have a great deal of positive and negative effects on the environment be- sides their benefits like controlling stream regimes, consequently preventing floods, obtaining domestic and irrigation water from the stored water and generating en- ergy. ... Nearly 700 dams were built every ten years up to 1950s.