Top 10 Tallest Dams in the World

Top 10 Tallest Dams in the World
The tallest dam in the world is the Nurek in Tajikistan at 300 meters.The list of top ten are given below.

1. Nurek Dam, Tajikistan – 300m

The Nurek Dam was constructed by the Soviet Union and  is uniquely constructed, with a central core of cement forming an impermeable barrier within a 300 m (980 ft)-high rock and earth fill construction. The volume of the mound is 54 million m³. The dam includes nine hydroelectric generating units, the first commissioned in 1972 and the last in 1979.The dam is located in a deep gorge along the Vakhsh River in western Tajikistan, about 75 km (47 mi) east of the nation's capital of Dushanbe. A town near the dam, also called Nurek, houses engineers and other workers employed at the dam's power plant.

2. Grande Dixence Dam, Switzerland – 285m

The Grande Dixence Dam is a concrete gravity dam on the Dixence River at the head of the Val d'Hérens in the canton of Valais in Switzerland. At 285 m (935 ft) high, it is the tallest gravity dam in the world and is part of the Cleuson-Dixence Complex. With the primary purpose of hydroelectric power generation, the dam fuels four power stations, totaling the installed capacity to 2,069 MW, generating approximately 2,000 GWh annually, enough to power 400,000 Swiss households.The dam withholds Lac des Dix (Lake Dix), its reservoir. The reservoir receives its water from four different pumping stations; the Z’Mutt, Stafel, Ferpècle and Arolla. At peak capacity, it contains approximately 400,000,000 m3 (1.4×1010 cu ft) of water, with depths reaching up to 284 m (932 ft).[1] Construction on the dam began in 1950 and was completed in 1964, before officially commissioning in 1965.

3. Inguri Dam, Georgia – 271.5m

The Inguri Dam is a hydroelectric dam on the Inguri River in Georgia. Currently it is the world's highest concrete arch dam with a height of 272 metres (892 ft).[1][2][3] It is located north of the town Jvari. It is part of the Inguri hydroelectric power station (HES) which is partially located in the partially recognised Abkhazia.the dam was built on the Inguri River where the impact upon the coastline was assessed to be considerably less pronounced.The Inguri hydroelectric power station (HES) is a cascade of hydroelectric facilities including, in addition to the dam - diversion installation of the Inguri HES proper, the near-dam installation of the Perepad HES-1 and three similar channel installations of the Perepad HESs-2, -3, and -4 located on the tailrace emptying into the Black Sea.[8] While the arch dam is located on the Georgian controlled territory in Upper Svanetia, the power station is located in the Gal district of Abkhazia.[6] Inguri HES has 20 turbines with a nominal capacity of 66 MW each[9], resulting in a total capacity of 1,320 MW. Its average annual capacity is 3.8 billion kW/h, which is approximately 46% of the total electricity supply in Georgia as of 2007.

4. Vajont Dam, Italy – 261.6m

The Vajont Dam (or Vaiont Dam) is a disused dam, completed in 1959 in the valley of the Vajont river under Monte Toc, 100 km north of Venice, Italy. A 1963 landslide caused the overtopping of the dam and around 2,000 deaths.

One of the tallest dams in the world, it is 262 metres (860 ft) high, 27 metres (89 ft) thick at the base and 3.4 metres (11 ft) at the top. Its 1963 over-topping was caused when the designers ignored the geological instability of Monte Toc on the southern side of the basin. Warning signs and negative appraisals during the early stages of filling were disregarded, and the attempt to complete the filling led to a landslide which created a wave that brought massive flooding and destruction to the Piave valley below, wiping out several villages completely.

On 12 February 2008, while launching the International Year of Planet Earth, UNESCO cited the Vajont Dam tragedy as one of five "cautionary tales", caused by "the failure of engineers and geologists."

5. Chicoasén Dam, Mexico – 261m

The Chicoasén Dam (officially known as Manuel M. Torres) is an embankment dam and hydroelectric power station on the Grijalva River near Chicoasén in Chiapas, Mexico. The dam's power plant, known as "Manuel Moreno Torres" contains 5 x 300 MW, 3 x 310 MW Francis turbine-generators. Torres was Comisión Federal de Electricidad's (the dam's owner) Director General in the later 1950s. The original generators were first operational in 1980 while the 310 MW units were ordered in 2000 and operational by 2005. Since then, the hydroelectric power station is the largest in Mexico.[1] The dam was designed in the early 1970s and constructed between 1974 and 1980 under topographical and geological constraints. It is an earth and rock fill embankment type with a height of 261 m (856 ft) and length of 485 m (1,591 ft).[2] It withholds a reservoir of 1,613,000,000 m3 (1,307,680 acre·ft) and lies at the head of a 52,600 km2 (20,309 sq mi) catchment area.

 6. Tehri Dam, India – 261m

The Tehri Dam is a 260 meter (855 feet) high rock and earth-fill embankment dam on the Bhagirathi River near Tehri in Uttarakhand, India. It is the primary dam of theTehri Hydro Development Corporation Ltd. and the Tehri hydroelectric complex. Completed in 2006, the Tehri Dam withholds a reservoir of 2.6 billion cubic meters for irrigation, municipal water supply and the generation of 1,000 MW of hydroelectricity along with an additional 1,000 MW of pumped storage hydroelectricity.

The 1000 MW Tehri Dam is part of the Tehri Hydropower Complex which also includes the 400 MW Koteshwar Dam downstream and the 1000 MW Tehri Pumped Storage Hydroelectric Power Plant which is set for completion in 2013.[1] The Tehri dam along with the downstream Koteshwar Dam and the Tehri pumped storage hydroelectricity power plant will afford a power generation capacity of 2400 MW, provision of irrigation to an area of 270,000 hectares, irrigation stabilization to an area of 600,000 hectares, and a supply of 270 million gallons of drinking water per day to the industrialized areas of Delhi, Uttar Pradesh and Uttarakhand.

7. Álvaro Obregón Dam, Mexico – 260m

Those Álvaro Obregón dam (Spanish Presa Álvaro Obregón, also Presa del Oviachic mentioned) is a large Dam in Mexico in the southwest of Sonora. It is designated after Álvaro Obregón (1880-1928), a general, who was of 1920-1924 a president of Mexico. In the year 1952 it became from president Miguel Alemán inaugurated.

The Río is accumulated Yaqui, however in other sources also the Mextiquic and the Fuerte are called. The dam serves the irrigation of a surface of 2720 km ², the generation of current out Water power and low water reconciliation.

The shut-off building is 90 m more highly Dam. The dam lies approx. 56 km north the city Ciudad Obregón. It is the lowest of three dams in the valley of the Yaqui. The collected water rises from the mountains at the border of the Federal States Sonora and Chihuahua.

8. Mauvoisin Dam, Switzerland – 250m

Lac de Mauvoisin is a lake in the canton of Valais, Switzerland. The reservoir is formed by the Mauvoisin Dam, which is 250 m high. The dam is currently the 13th highest in the world, and the third highest arch dam. It was built in 1951–1957, and raised by 13.5 m in 1991. The reservoir lies in the upper Val de Bagnes, to the east of the Grand Combin.Six Swiss power companies and a municipality are shareholders in FMM, whose main asset is the Mauvoisin Dam and reservoir.There are three main power plants in the Mauvoisin complex. Chanrion (28 MW) uses the outflow of several glaciers above Lac de Mauvoisin. The first plant is Fionnay (138 MW). Water collected in the Fionnay basin is then directed through a 15km long pressure tunnel to Riddes power station in the Rhone valley (225 MW). Average energy production from the scheme is 1 TWh.

9. Guavio, Colombia – 243m

10. Mica Dam,  Canada – 234m

The Mica Dam is a hydroelectric dam spanning the Columbia River 135 kilometres north of Revelstoke, British Columbia, Canada. Completed in 1973 under the terms of the 1964 Columbia River Treaty, the Mica powerhouse has a generating capacity of 1,740 MW. The dam is operated by BC Hydro. The Mica Dam, named after the nearby settlement (now drowned under the lake) of Mica Creek and its associated stream in turn named because of the abundance of mica minerals in the area, is one of the largest earthfill dams in the world. The reservoir for the dam is Kinbasket Lake, which was created when the dam was built. Water below the dam flows south directly into Revelstoke Lake, the reservoir for the Revelstoke Dam. The dam's underground powerhouse was the second largest in the world at the time of its construction, and was the first installation of sulphur hexafluoride (SF6) insulated switchgear in North America. It is also the dam farthest up the river on the Columbia River.