Effects of Dam Building
Essay - Effects of Dam Building Grade 10 Geography Units 12, 13, 14 Many people have already dammed a small stream using sticks and mud by the time they become adults. Humans have used dams since early civilization, because four-thousand years ago they became aware that floods and droughts affected their well-being and so they began to build dams to protect themselves from these effects.1 The basic principles of dams still apply today as they did before; a dam must prevent water from being passed. Since then, people have been continuing to build and perfect these structures, not knowing the full intensity of their side effects. The hindering effects of dams on humans and their environment heavily outweigh the beneficial ones. The paragraphs below will prove that the construction and presence of dams always has and will continue to leave devastating effects on the environment around them. ... A dam is a barrier built across a water course to hold back or control water flow. ... A diversion dam is a generation of a commonly constructed dam which is built to provide sufficient water pressure for pushing water into ditches, canals or other systems. ... Diversion dams are mainly built to lessen the effects of floods and to trap sediment. ... Often, two types of these dams are combined to form a composite structure consisting of for example an overflow concrete gravity dam, the water that overflows into dikes of earthfill construction. ... One of the largest problems with this dam, is that it would be built on a region that meant a lot to 10 500 Cree and 7 000 Inuit.