how are dams useful for agriculture

Farm dams play a critical role in agriculture worldwide. They provide secure annual water supply for consumptive purposes including irrigation, stock and domestic purposes. They are important because they improve the viability and productivity of agricultural activities in a local region.

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What are the pros and cons of dams?

 · Dams are not the smart way to secure water for agriculture Dams aren’t the best way to store water. Australia needs a strong agricultural sector for vibrant rural communities. Rivers part of a system. Dams also continue the idea that water going to sea is “lost” and could be used more… Better ways …

What is the main economic value of dams?

 · Manmade dams create artificial lakes called reservoir s. Reservoirs can be used to store water for farming, industry, and household use. They also can be used for fishing, boating, and other leisure activities. People have used dams for many centuries to help prevent flooding.

What is the importance of dams for a country?

1 – Farm dams are important for economic growth Farm dams play a critical role in agriculture worldwide. They provide secure annual water supply for consumptive purposes including irrigation, stock and domestic purposes. They are important because they improve the viability and productivity of agricultural activities in a local region.

What are the functions of dams?

due to a dam, reducing flood hazard due to inundation of land, crop and property which might result into economic upheavals. It also reduces congestion of runoff in plains and coastal lands. Dams, reservoirs, flood levees, embankments, and river training works constitute structural measures for better flood management.

Are dams used for agriculture?

Dams are supposed to help farmers manage water supply and boost crop yields, but in Africa they may actually have cut agricultural production, researchers warn.

Why are dams good for irrigation?

Flood control dams specifically mitigate floodwaters by impounding water and then safely diverting the water towards other places. Great source of irrigation: The presence of a dam creates a reservoir that can be used as a great source of water, specifically for farm and industrial activities.

How do dams affect farming?

Dams can help increase agricultural production by controlling the supply of irrigation water to crops, protect production from climatic risk, help generate electricity, and reduce the risk of potentially disastrous river floods.

What is dam and how it is useful?

dam, structure built across a stream, a river, or an estuary to retain water. Dams are built to provide water for human consumption, for irrigating arid and semiarid lands, or for use in industrial processes.

How dams play an important role in agriculture in India?

Irrigation. Dams and reservoirs are constructed to store surplus waters during wet periods, which can be used for irrigating arid lands. One of the major benefits of dams and reservoirs is that water flows can be regulated as per agricultural requirements of the various regions over the year.

What are the pros and cons of building a dam?

Pros and Cons of DamsPros of Dams. 1) Provides Help to Retain our Water Supply. 2) Serve as a Source of Drinking Water. 3) Provide a Stable System of Navigation. … Cons of Dams. 1) Displace a Significant Number of People. 2) Disrupts Local Ecosystems. 3) Can be Challenging to Maintain.Conclusion.

What are the disadvantages of dam?

Disadvantages of DamsDisplacement of people during construction.Reservoirs often emit a high percentage of greenhouse gases.Often disrupts local ecosystems.It disrupts the groundwater table.Blocks progression of water to other countries, states or regions.

What does a dam?

A dam is a structure built across a stream or river to hold water back. Dams can be used to store water, control flooding, and generate electricity. 5 – 8. Conservation, Earth Science, Geology, Meteorology.

Why can’t dams sustain heavy rainfall?

8. They are not affected by very heavy rainfall. Earth dams cannot sustain very heavy rainfall because of heavy erosions.

Which is more suitable, arch dams or gravity dams?

i. They are particularly suitable for narrow deep gorges. In such conditions arch dams prove even more suitable than gravity dams.

How much cement is needed for a gravity dam?

6. They require only half to one-third amount of cement concrete in relation to the concrete required for gravity dam for the same height. The cost is not reduced by the same proportions as increased cost is required for form work and reinforcement.

Why is the load of water on the inclined deck slab important?

2. The load of water lying on the inclined deck slab adds to the vertical component, of the dam and as such helps in increasing the stability of the dam. The factor of safety in case of buttress dams is far greater than for gravity dams.

Can a dam be raised?

5. If height of the dam is to be raised, it cannot be done unless provision for it had been made in the construction of the lower part of the dam.

How to reduce silt in a reservoir?

7. Silting rate of the reservoir can be reduced considerably by installing under sluices in the dam near the bed of the reservoir. Sluices can be operated from time to time and silt may be scoured out of the reservoir.

Can dams be built for very large heights?

3. If suitable foundation is available, such dams can be constructed for very large heights.

How can we save water on farms?

This is currently being pursued on farm through reducing water inputs via drip and trickle irrigation, connecting nutrient and water management, better timing of applications, and increasing the use of new technology to save water on farm. This particularly requires easier-to-use technology and better on farm and hands-on training.

Why is agriculture important in the future?

Agriculture for the future needs smart solutions to manage water, and soil moisture, to increase the water use efficiency of the production systems. Dams, due to their physical dimensions, store large amounts of water, but in the Australian environment also lose large amounts of water through high evaporation (particularly in summer) …

What is Australia’s smart solution for managing water and drought?

In my opinion, this means that Australia requires smart solutions for managing water and drought on-farm, through better crop varieties, more efficient water application, smarter irrigation layouts, better on-farm data collection and interpretation, and more education and training.

Can dams be used to see water?

Dams also continue the idea that water going to sea is “lost” and could be used more productively. It suggests that water in rivers can be seen separately from water in groundwater, or in plants, or in soil, or in the ocean, rather than seeing all this as one connected system, which is the current scientific paradigm.

Do dams provide water supply?

Finally, while dams can provide some buffering of water supply in droughts, in the last Millennium drought this buffering clearly was insufficient as shown by the collapse in irrigated production in cotton and rice between 2000 and 2010.

Is investment in water a priority?

The paper highlights investment in water as a priority for the future. While several of the mentioned investments in water efficiency are important, the suggested investment in new dams seems out of place.

Is a dam a political statement?

Dams, however, are nice political statements, they are large and visible, can be opened with fanfare, require investment, labour, and boost the local economy.

Why do people build dams?

People have used dams for many centuries to help prevent flooding. The ancient Mesopotamia ns may have been some of the first humans to build dams. The oldest known dam is the Jawa Dam, located in present-day Jordan.

How did the Colorado River dam help?

The dam helped to control the flow of water on the Colorado River by creating Lake Mead, one of the largest reservoirs in the United States. Lake Mead provides drinking water for the city of Las Vegas. Dams have long been viewed as a symbol of human ingenuity.

What is hydroelectric dam?

hydroelectric dam. Noun. structure built across a river or other waterway that generates electricity by controlling the flow of water that passes through it. hydroelectric power. Noun. usable energy generated by moving water converted to electricity. Mesopotamia.

What is dam in biology?

dam. Noun. structure built across a river or other waterway to control the flow of water. ecology. Noun. branch of biology that studies the relationship between living organisms and their environment. Great Depression. Noun. (1929-1941) period of very low economic activity in the U.S. and throughout the world.

How long has Hoover Dam been in operation?

An aerial view of the Hoover Dam. This dam has been harvesting hydroelectric power for over 80 years now.

How many hydroelectric dams are there in Brazil?

More than 200 hydroelectric dam s have been proposed in Brazil. While these dams could help satisfy growing South American energy demands, they would also flood more than 10 million hectares (25 million acres) of the Amazon Rainforest. An aerial view of the Hoover Dam.

What is the Hoover Dam?

The Hoover Dam sits on the border between Nevada and Arizona. It was completed in 1936. The Hoover Dam is regarded as an engineering marvel. It was the tallest dam ever built at the time—222 meters (727 feet). The dam helped to control the flow of water on the Colorado River by creating Lake Mead, one of the largest reservoirs in the United States. Lake Mead provides drinking water for the city of Las Vegas.

Why are dams important?

Dams and waterways store and provide water for irrigation so farmers can use the water for growing crops. This idea goes way back into history. Irrigation is an important part of using water. In areas where water and rain are not abundant (like the desert), irrigation canals from rivers and dams are used to carry water.

Why do we need dams?

Dams help in preventing floods. They catch extra water so that it doesn’t run wild downstream. Dam operators can let water out through the dam when needed. The first upstream flood control dam was built in 1948, Cloud Creek Dam in Oklahoma.

Why are rivers and streams important?

Rivers and streams provide a great opportunity for transportation. Barges and ships can navigate along a river carrying large loads of food and merchandise. This style of transportation is effective because the loads carried can be quite large.

How is hydroelectric power made?

Hydroelectric power is made when water passes through a dam. The electricity is made by a device called a turbine. These are made of metal coils surrounded by magnets. The magnets spin over the coils to produce electricity. Turbines are found in dams. The water going through a dam spins the magnets. The energy made is clean and pollution free.

Where does drinking water come from?

Drinking Water: Since the water stored in dams is fresh water, it can then be used for drinking water in nearby towns and cities. Some cities get their water from rivers and streams in other states. The water is transported through large canals and waterways.

Why are dams important?

1 – Farm dams are important for economic growth. Farm dams play a critical role in agriculture worldwide. They provide secure annual water supply for consumptive purposes including irrigation, stock and domestic purposes. They are important because they improve the viability and productivity of agricultural activities in a local region.

What is farm dam?

They are typically a barrier built on a surface water flow path for the purpose of holding back and storing the runoff or flow along that flow path, which otherwise would flow downstream.

What are the challenges of farm dams?

A challenge for farm dam modelling is the distributed nature of farm dams and the distributed nature of upstream catchment conditions. Historically, conceptual hydrological models, with lumped catchment parameters and distributed farm dam and rainfall parameters, were built and calibrated to records from a downstream streamflow gauge at catchment or sub-catchment scale (Figure 3). This effectively aggregates the runoff generation parameters across the catchment or sub-catchment into one set of model parameters. Recent advances in modelling have seen un-lumping or explicit spatial representation of some of the catchment parameters (like land use and soils) that influence runoff generation processes that have led to better spatial representation of catchment behaviour in the models. However, it is acknowledged that ‘physical’ models, with targeted data collection to represent a hydrological process (or processes) that is being studied, provide a better understanding of that particular process (or processes) at the scale at which the data is collected. With this in mind, this project aims at understanding the ‘sub-surface flows paths’ at a finer scales, which are critical in understanding and representing the interaction between surface water and groundwater. Such interactions are important when trying to understand the proportions of water bypassing a farm dam via subsurface flow pathways. Fully coupled surface-subsurface physical based modelling is one way to address this.

What is the scale of hydrological processes involving farm dams?

The scale of hydrological processes involving farm dams is small compared to large dams located downstream . Downstream flows tend to be more consistent, where flow varies more smoothly. Upstream flows tend to be short-lasting and more variable (Figure 2).

What is the difference between a farm dam and a large dam?

Scale: Large dams have larger catchment areas while farm dams have only a small contributing area. Farm dams are typically located upstream in head-water catchments that are often ephemeral in nature (Figure 2). They are small in size and storage and have small contributing areas, in comparison to the larger reservoirs.

Where are farm dams located?

Farm dams are commonly located on the hillside of head-water catchments and vary in size (from a few kilo-litres to hundreds of mega-litres) and location within a catchment.

Is a farm dam regulated?

Historically, farm dams were largely unregulated. However, since the extensive development of farm dams across South Australia (and other states in Australia) during the 80s and 90s, policy and legislative tools have been developed to manage their growth in a sustainable manner.

What are the benefits of dams?

perpetually guaranteed. Navigation, fishery, irrigated forestry, recreation and leisure are some other obvious benefits. The overall development due to dams is there for everybody to see. Benefits, costs and risks undoubtedly increase with size of a dam. Efforts are made by dam planners to maximise benefits, minimise costs and build in defensive measures in dam components to take care of risks by deploying appropriate technology and design features. Incidents involving dam failures are decreasing from decade to decade and the safety record is likely to be better than in many other sectors of infrastructural development. Dam safety concerns and policies have been incorporated in dam engineering from concept to O&M stage and this has shown positive effects on the performance of dams. Thus, structural safety of high dams is no longer a real concern. Compensation for affected population The adversely affected people due to a dam comprise those who are displaced due to inundation in the reservoir or due to ancillary structures. Some people dependent on those displaced are also incidentally affected. Some farms develop waterlogging due to canal waters and the concerned farmers are also affected. These people have to be rehabilitated and resettled with due compensation and recognition for their sacrifice. Such rehabilitation and resettlement (R&R) effected in their consultation and with their consent can also include partnership and ownership in the facilities and provide them economic benefits flowing from the water resources development. Very liberal R&R policies/guidelines have been framed by several developing countries which provide for appropriate compensation measures for the project affected population. The canals generally run along a contour and provide irrigation water by flow in a command area. For farmers who are on higher level than the canal, and similarly those on the fringe of reservoirs, lift irrigation facilities can be provided, if so desired by either affected people or those who are close to the facilities. While the supplies through the canal could be seasonal, those directly by lifts from the reservoir are more assured and

How does a dam help in flood management?

It also reduces congestion of runoff in plains and coastal lands. Dams, reservoirs, flood levees, embankments, and river training works constitute structural measures for better flood management. However, non-structural measures like monitoring of precipitation, river and reservoir stages and flow measurements, forecasting, early warning, appropriate disaster warning and strategy, also are important in flood management. In the lean season, the river flow in the downstream reduces depending on withdrawals from dams through canals or pipelines, however, it can be augmented with supplies from upstream withdrawals. Reduced frequencies of floods and reduced peak flows reduce the agricultural and non-agricultural losses. On the other hand, if storage is used for generation of hydropower in the river bed, then seasonal flow is enhanced ameliorating several difficulties downstream. Intensive economic developments have been realised, for instance in the areas of Damodar, Mississippi, Missouri, Nile, and Tennessee rivers, only because of flood protection by the dams. Standards The various professional institutions/associations, Governments and the academic sector have, during the last century, developed criteria and guidelines for all aspects of decision making as related to dams. Present day standards are a result of continuous review and upgrading through experience and generated knowledge. The standards help assess availability, variability, statistical dependability, storage size, risk analysis about chances of hydrological failure, multipurpose sharing of reservoir space, sharing of costs, environmental checklists, monitoring of environmental effects, mitigation measures and effectiveness of development effort, in addition to the numerous Science and Technology based procedures, methods and design of structures and their components. All storage dams proposed to be built for identified purposes therefore aim to conform to the approved standards.

Why are storages important?

Storages provide insurance against uncertainty due to climatic variability, can help reduce variability in season’s low flows in rivers and basically save societies from economic upheavals and losses due to flood and drought .

How deep is the water behind dams?

Storage and quantities for beneficial uses Not all the water stored behind dams is withdrawn for use. A top depth varying from 1 to 2 meters depending on local climate, is annually lost to atmosphere due to evaporation. At the bottom, some depth serves as a dead storage for accommodating sediment brought in.

How do dams facilitate water transport?

All dams facilitate transport of water to deficit areas by means of open canals, tunnels or closed pipelines. In a river basin, a judicious combination of large and small dams may be required to store water for facilitating withdrawal and use with minimum transport distance to demand regions.

What is ICID sustainable agriculture?

Sustainable irrigated agriculture, drainage of rainfed crops and of irrigated land and flood control and management comprise the main action thrusts of the ICID. In pursuing its aims, ICID embraces the sound principles of socio-economic values and environmental management.

Is the environmental cost of building and using a dam in a developing country smaller than that of not doing that

It is often to be concluded that the environmental cost of building and using a dam in a developing country is smaller than that of not doing that dam project. The extent of submergence and evaporation loss from a large storage project is lesser than that from a series of equivalent small storage projects.

What are the uses of dams?

They supply the water for the various means including domestic use, irrigation purposes and also for the industrial uses. Dams are also involved in the hydroelectric power generation and in the river navigation.

What are the advantages of dams?

Advantages of dams are numerous, that is the reason so much money and work goes into building and maintaining them. Some of the advantages are: 1 Electricity is produced at the constant rate with the help of hydroelectricity or hydroelectric power. 2 If there is no need for electricity, then the sluice gates can also be closed or stopping the generation of electricity. Water can also be saved for the use of another time as and when the demand for electricity is high hence the usage of water remains judicious. 3 Dams are so designed by well-qualified engineers to span many of the decades and also can contribute to the generation of electricity for about many years or even decades to come. 4 The lake or reservoir which forms behind the dam can also be used for the irrigation purpose, water sports or even as other forms of pleasurable activities.Few large dams such as the Bhakra Nangal dam present in India is the tourist attractions. 5 The buildup of water inside lake means that the energy can also be stored when needed and also when water is released for producing the electricity. 6 When used, the produced electricity by the dams does not even produce the greenhouse gases and also hence they do not pollute the atmosphere.

What does it mean when water builds up inside a lake?

The buildup of water inside lake means that the energy can also be stored when needed and also when water is released for producing the electricity.

What are the advantages of hydroelectric power?

Some of the advantages are: Electricity is produced at the constant rate with the help of hydroelectricity or hydroelectric power. If there is no need for electricity, then the sluice gates can also be closed or stopping the generation of electricity. Water can also be saved for the use of another time as and when the demand for electricity is high …

When do dams store water?

During the times of excess flow of water, the dams store the water in the reservoir; later they release that water during the times of low flow, also when the natural flows of water are inadequate to meet the demand.

Can dams be used for electricity?

Water can also be saved for the use of another time as and when the demand for electricity is high hence the usage of water remains judicious. Dams are so designed by well-qualified engineers to span many of the decades and also can contribute to the generation of electricity for about many years or even decades to come.

How does dams affect agriculture?

In other countries, the artificial lake behind the dam has covered an arid land enabling utilization of the water for irrigation of nearby “good” lands for agriculture.

How does economic productivity relate to agriculture?

The economic productivity of agriculture relates to the generation of a benefit because of the relationship of variables that impact on the production and performance . The water is the main input of production and its efficiency with irrigation systems appropriate to the type of crop have been positive effects such as increased performance, saving water and therefore better socio-economic level of the producers.

Do dams increase yield?

6) I n general Dams have positive effect along with other factors in increase in yield (one of the measure of productivity).

Why are dams important?

That means a dam can provide a buffer to an entire region against extreme weather events or irregular precipitation patterns. 3. This technology provides us with critical recreational opportunities. Dams can provide us with a wide range of economic, environmental, and social benefits.

Why do we need dams?

We can produce power from dams because of the kinetic energy of the water movements as it causes turbines to spin. That’s what allows us to generate electricity that is clean and renewable. Once the dam gets entirely constructed, we no longer have a dependence on fossil fuels to be responsible for the energy we need to maintain a modern lifestyle.

How many dams have been built on the Klamath River?

The Klamath River Has worked under the influence of four dams for almost 60 years. Those structures generate an average of 82 megawatts of power annually. That energy might be renewable, but it is not free of environmental consequences. These structures took a dynamic ecosystem and replaced it with a wretched impostor of itself. Even the dams’ owner decided that the cost of maintaining the structures it was no longer worth it, and so they are coming down.

Why do we need dams on rivers?

We can use dams on rivers to provide a stable system of inland water transportation. The navigable waterways of the United States, like those found on the Mississippi River, can be challenging for some boats to use because of varying water levels.

Why is the Nile River so famous?

The Nile River is famous for its unpredictable annual flow throughout history. As climate change continues to progress, the patterns of El Nino and La Nina in the Pacific Ocean will continue to increase. That means we will have more cycles of excessive precipitation and drought, and dams can help us to regulate this issue.

Which country produces the most hydroelectric power?

The United States is one of the largest producers of hydroelectricity in the world today, even with the reduction of operational facilities. Americans generate over 103,000 megawatts of renewable electricity with this resource, with only Canada currently creating more power in this way. 2.

What are the advantages and disadvantages of dams?

17 Biggest Advantages and Disadvantages of Dams. We use dams to impede or stop the flow of water along a river. Although this engineering structure gets commonly associated with the production of hydroelectric energy, we also use them for a variety of different purposes. When a river gets dammed, it creates an artificial lake behind it …