fw.4.2 Multipurpose dams
Content
- Geographic inquiry and concept(s)
- Future possibilities for management intervention in drainage basins
- Geographic knowledge and understanding
- Increased dam building for multipurpose water schemes, and their costs and benefits
- Case study or detailed examples
- Case study of contemporary dam building expansion in one major drainage basin
- Aims of this lesson
- To have knowledge of why there is a need to increase the number of dams found within a drainage basin.
- To have an understanding of the benefits and problems created by increased dam building.
- To have knowledge of a specific drainage basin where the building of dams is increasing.
Base knowledge and understanding
News article
China starts building world’s biggest hydropower dam
1.2tn yuan project has broken ground in Tibet, premier says, despite fears of downstream nations India and Bangladesh
The Guardian · 21 July 2025
Key terms
- Multipurpose dams
- Combines two or more functions of traditional single-purpose dams into one hydro infrastructure project. A multipurpose dam may combine storing and supplying water for irrigation, industry and human consumption with other uses such as flood control, power generation, navigation, run-off storage and water discharge regulation.
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Review
- Outline one social consequence of large-scale dam construction. [2]
- Explain one economic benefit and one environmental cost of a multipurpose dam scheme. [4]
- Examine how increased dam building can create both opportunities and challenges for communities within a drainage basin. [10]
