Warragamba Dam’s Importance for Sydney’s Water Supply
What is it?
Warragamba supplies water to over 3.7 million each day who live in Sydney and areas in the lower Blue Mountains. The Dam is one of the largest in the world and Warragamba Dam is located in Wallacia, New South Wales around 65 kilometers to the west of Sydney. It is managed and run by Sydney Catchment Authority.
History-
In 1845, the dam was first recognised as a perfect place for a dam due to its profound narrow gorge with a flowing river through it. This idea for a dam to be built there was brought about by a Polish explorer of the time named Count Paul Strezelecki. This idea finally turned into a reality over a century later in 1948 when Warragamba Dam was built in order to establish a reliable new water supply for Sydney’s growing population. The dam took around 12 years to build and was finally opened in 1960. It demonstrated the hard work of over 1800 workers who helped to build it.
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Why was it built?
Just over 55% of teachers and students surveyed believed that Warragamba Dam was either built as water was at unsustainable level for Sydney’s water supply or that it was built to offer jobs for engineers in the 20th century. Though both of these answers were incorrect. Warragamba Dam was built as it offered two important things essential for a dam being a large catchment area and a river flowing through a thin gorge.
Why is it important?
83% of people surveyed believe that Warragamba Dam is very important for Sydney’s water supply. A fellow member of the Ascham staff said that they believed this because
“With a growing population, we need to keep our water supplies available for use.”
Warragamba Dam is vital for Sydney’s water supply as it supplies the highest quality of raw water available. The Sydney Catchment Authority ensures this and it is their goal to make sure that water quality continues to meet the Australian Drinking
guidelines. Warragamba Dam is also very important as these days in our modern culture, people barely consider the amount of water they are using from a day-to-day basis. This is evident as when asked about the length of an average shower, 100% of the people surveyed said 5 minutes to 10 minutes or more. When further questioned if they consider the amount of water they are using another 53% said yes and the remaining said no. So nearly half are not even considering their water usage during their daily shower. Therefore Warragamba dam is essential to supply water to Sydney in order for people to maintain their daily water usage. Lastly with a constantly growing population, increasing faster than ever before, the more water we can gather from Warragamba Dam the better. During the time in which the dam was built there was a booming population along with an increasing median age, so there were more people and they were living longer. Thus it was time that the Sydney Catchment Authority made sure there was enough water to go around. Fortunately, their responsible decision to create the dam paid off when Sydney’s population grew by 1.7 million residents between 1973 and 2013. Overall Warragamba Dam has supplied water for all of Sydney’s past generations, the present and most definitely will continue to supply water to Sydney in the future. It is very important for Sydney’s water supply as it supplies high quality water, sustains of modern day water requirements and incorporates enough water for our ever-increasing population.
Author Patrick McCully of Silenced Rivers: The Ecology and Politics of Large Dams (2001), reports that the first dam was built around 3000 B.C. (p. 11).
The negative aspects of Glen Canyon Dam greatly exceed the positive aspects. The dam’s hydroelectric power supply is only three percent of the total power used by the six states that are served by the facility. There is a surplus of power on the Colorado Plateau and with more and more power-plants being created in the western hemisphere, Glen Canyon Dam’s power is not needed (Living Rivers: What about the hydroelectric loss). Although the ‘lake’ contains twenty seven million acre feet of water, one and a half million acre feet of water are lost yearly due to evaporation and seepage into the sandstone banks surrounding the ‘lake’ (Living Rivers: What about the water supply?). The loss of that much “water represents millions, even billions of dollars” (Farmer 183). If the government were to employ more water efficient irrigation practices, as much as five million acre feet of water per year could be saved.
Grand Coulee Dam is a hydroelectric gravity dam on the Columbia River in Washington State, built by industrialist Henry J. Kaiser It is among the most famous dams in the United States. The reservoir it created is called the Franklin Delano Roosevelt Lake. The reservoir is named after the United States President who seemed to love dams and hydroelectric power and who was involved with the project through to the final completion of the dam. The dam was built as part of the Columbia Basin Project as a way to irrigate the desert areas of the Northwest United States. The dam started during the 1930s as a public works project and finished toward the beginning of World War Two. The initial construction plan was reconfigured during construction for more height. Its height was determined by the point at which the water from the reservoir began backing up into Canada. The scope and size of the dam is hard to comprehend. It is over a mile long and taller than the Great Pyramid of Giza, in fact, all the pyramids at Giza can fit within the base of the Grand Coulee Dam. The dam is so large that a truck at the base looks like a toy, this creates some perspective into the dam's true size. When the dam was completed in the early 1940s it was the largest dam in the world.
Over the years Glen Canyon Dam has been the spark for hundreds of debates, rallies, and protests. These debates have been going on for almost forty years now. The fact is that the dam created a huge lake when it was built, this is what bothers environmentalists. This lake is called Lake Powell and thousands of people depend on its tourists for income. The lake also filled up a canyon called Glen Canyon, some people say it was the most beautiful place on earth. The anti-dam side of the debate has its basis in the fact that Lake Powell is currently covering Glen Canyon. It was very remote so few people got to witness its splendor. This is probably the reason the dam was built in the first place, ignorance.
This statement ensures the reader that the dam was built “for the people” doing this without stating any facts that prove the statement. This statement also does not state why the U.S. government built Glen Canyon dam.
There were about 30,000 people in the area before the flood. The Western Reservoir was built in the 1840s, but became generally known as the South Fork dam. It was designed to supply extra water for the Main Line canal from Johnstown to Pittsburgh. By saving the spring floods, water could be released during the dry summers. When the dam was completed in 1852, the Pennsylvania Railroad completed the track from Philadelphia to Pittsburgh, and the canal business began its decline.
What: it gave jobs to unemployed workers. 726 ft high and 1,244 feet long. World's tallest dam, and second largest dam. Provided electricity and flood control, and regular water supply.
The Hoover Dam is a modern marvel and a testament to American ingenuity. At over six million six hundred thousand tons and jetting seven hundred sixty feet from the canyon floor, six hundred sixty feet across the bottom and, one thousand two hundred forty four feet across the top, the structure is awe inspiring even to a modern audience. Three quarters of a century since its completion it still stands as a symbol of one of the greatest construction projects of the ages. The need for a dam to block the Colorado River was not a new idea when construction began in 1931, but had been mulled around since the dawn of the century. Flooding due to runoff from the Rocky Mountains had devastated crops, and a need for hydroelectric power increased the need for a dam. In 1922 Black Valley was chosen as the spot for the dam’s construction. No one construction company was large enough to take on the project alone, so a group of companies formed a joint venture in order to bid the job. The Six Companies Inc. made up of Morrison-Knudson, the J.F. Shea Company of Portland, MacDonald & Kahn Ltd, Pacific Bridge Company of Portland, Henry J. Kaiser, Bechtel Company of San Francisco were awarded the winning bid for the dam at forty eight million eight hundred ninety thousand nine hundred fifty five dollars. The construction management team had a Herculean task in building this behemoth and faced many problems in its construction. A few of the major issues posed to the team were diverting the Colorado River, provisioning the men and material to get the job done, and the actual construction of the Hoover Dam. The heights involved with project led to many safety obstacles that had to be overcame.
Uluru, also commonly known as Ayers Rock, is a large sandstone rock located in the Northern Territory, Australia. Uluru is the Aboriginal name of the rock however it officially has dual names, both Uluru and Ayres Rock, and this official dual naming policy was introduced in 1993 to allow both names and cultures (Aboriginal and English) to be recognised. It is believed to be over 600 million years old and has an extreme climate. Winter nights can be as cold as -8oC, and summer days as hot as 48oC! Its average temperatures are from 5.6oC to 38.6oC. It stands 348m above the desert and 863m above sea level, and is 3.6km long by 1.9km wide! Approximately 2.5km of the rock is underground. The rock has valleys and ridges and no vegetation. The area around Uluru does however, have many
Primary sources used in this paper are those which were collected by the author. The data collected from Natural Bridge and Numinbah Hall may not be completely accurate as it only gave a representation of the results from that particular day, which may differ to another day’s results depending on the amount of rain, part of the river reviewed, biased sampling, etc.
The Murrumbidgee River is the 3rd longest river in Australia and in the Murray–Darling Basin (MDB), after the Murray and Darling rivers. The area of catchment is 8% of the total area of the MDB Basin and provides almost 16% of inflow for the Basin (Burrell, 2017). In Murrumbidgee regulated river, water source is defined as the water between the banks of all rivers, from the upper limit of Burrinjuck Dam water storage (being the Taemas Bridge crossing) and Blowering Dam water storage (being the dam wall and spillway for Jounama Pondage), downstream to the junction of the Murrumbidgee River and the Murray River
The water that supplies Western Australia comes from a variety of sources, including surface water and groundwater. Recent technologies have emerged which allow WA to use water sources that were previously unusable, such as desalinated ocean water and recycled wastewater (Government of Western Australia, 2012). The scale for this report is the state of Western Australia. This scale will allow for analysis of more elements of water consumption in Perth and its surrounding areas, not just the city’s consumption of water, but consumption from other key industries that fuel the economy of Perth and WA, including mining and agriculture.
In the film produced by Deepa Mehta, Water, mainly focuses on the experiences of Hindu widows in India. I enjoyed the film and in which it was taken in a country whose culture is very foreign to me. The film introduces where a young eight year old girl named Chuyia, becomes a widow after her husband’s death. At such a young age she does not remember her marriage to her husband, assuming it was arranged by her family. After being widowed, she is sent to a widow home in which she has to live there for the rest of her life and in which they are no accepted by society.
IYER, R.I. (19X9) "Large Dams: The Right Perspective.' Economic and Political Weekly, 14, 107- 116.
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.