Hydrosphere Contents

3. Water As A Resource

There are problems in matching water supplies to water demands at different places and times

The Srisailam Dam in India

Whilst the total quantity of water flow is adequate into the foreseeable future, there are problems in matching supplies to demands at different places and times. Major engineering projects have been developed accordingly. Single-purpose projects in the 19th century, such as the Suez Canal, were replaced a decade later by multi-purpose schemes, such as Aswan dam (first built in the early 20th century), where a single engineering structure produced a number of benefits such as for allowing better irrigation and to generate hydroelectricity. The mid-1930s saw groups of multi-purpose projects designed together in one basin system to produce an integrated river basin development of the type promoted by the Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA).

Can you identify some major water engineering projects?