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- Title
Replacing the Kariba Dam.
- Authors
Yiming Zhang; Jiachen Sun; Yisen Yao
- Abstract
The Kariba Dam on the Zambezi River, built in the 1950s, holds back the world's largest reservoir. After so many years, despite efforts to slow its structural problems, the Kariba Dam is in great danger. We provide a detailed analysis of the option of replacing the dam with a series of 10-20 smaller dams. We analyze different aspects, including the number, placement, and height of the new dams. We set the water management capabilities to be the same as the existing dam, providing protection and water management options for Lake Kariba. We first analyze the water flow, using the Manning formula, for a single dam. After that, we simulate a simplified dam with the three-dimensional software 3ds MAX and derive its storage capacity and building cost. Our overall model consists of three submodels: Risk Cost Model, Power Supply Ability Model, and Series Safety Model. The Risk Cost Model implements risk analysis, using the acceptable risk ratio, to achieve a balance between cost and safety. The Power Supply Ability Model measures the benefits that the dam system can produce. The Series Safety Model measures how safe the whole system is, based on an ideal distribution of dams along a river. We use the Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP) to prioritize these three aspects and propose the overall model. We use a genetic algorithm to determine the number and placement of dams, and we further determine the height of each dam. We further discuss strategies for addressing several situations, including the balance between safety and costs, protection for Lake Kariba, guidance for emergency water flow situations, and extreme water flows. Finally, we do sensitivity analysis and discuss strengths and weaknesses.
- Subjects
ZAMBEZI River Watershed; DAM design &; construction; WATER management; CONSTRUCTION cost estimates; KARIBA Dam (Zambia &; Zimbabwe)
- Publication
UMAP Journal, 2017, Vol 38, Issue 3, p269
- ISSN
0197-3622
- Publication type
Article