Dam

See also: Dam (homonymy)

A Digue is a longitudinal, natural or artificial fill, generally composed of ground (or of fill). The principal function of this work is to prevent water of a lake, a river or sea, to submerge the low-grounds being along this last…

The most famous dams are with the Netherlands, the Afsluitdijk (or closing dams) is the most impressive example.

One can distinguish:

- dams of protection against the floods, located in the major bed of a river (or along the maritime littoral) parallel to bank and intended to contain water of this one outside the dams. It bears the name of then raised ,

- dams of channels (of irrigation, hydroelectric,…), the channels are generally fed artificially, the dams of channels are used to contain water inside the channel,

- the dams of the maritime type (mole or piers) which does not have vocation to be tight, but which have a simple function of protection against the mechanical actions of water (waves). The term of dam is employed much by the professionals of the coastal genious to indicate a Break-blade.

The embankments composing of the Barrages are sometimes called dams (example: dam pond), but to avoid any confusion, it is not recommended to employ the word dams to indicate a transverse work which bars a river.

materials

The dams can be built into hard, on important foundations (it is the case for the dams of sea, or being made up of simple liftings of ground, even of sand and vegetalized. In the Netherlands the vegetation of the most fragile dams are maintained by sheep so as not to degrade them by heavy machines.

Rises of the oceans

The Climate warming already seems to have started a rise of the sea. The phenomena of erosion of the feature of coast and degradation of the dams tend to increase (70% of the European littoral approximately are touched). Certain countries start to raise their dams (Netherlands, part of England.) and/or to give up with the sea certain polders (Netherlands).

See too

Break-blade
Thrown

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