75th Anniversary |
An interdisciplinary challenge
Reflecting on the many projects he has worked on throughout his career, Martin Wieland says that dams are the most interdisciplinary and challenging civil engineering projects in which civil engineers still play the main role, and he would strongly recommend working on such projects for any newcomers to the profession
Right: Maigrauge dam in Switzerland was built in 1872 and is still in operation, it is the oldest concrete dam in Europe
About the author
Martin Wieland, Chairman of the ICOLD Committee on Seismic Aspects of Dam Design, Honorary Member of ICOLD, and Dam Consultant in Dietikon, Switzerland.
www.Email: martin.
wieland48@gmail.com
Below: The 249m high Deriner arch dam in the northeast of Turkey
WHEN I WORKED IN the Laboratory of Hydraulics, Hydrology and Glaciology at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology (ETH) in Zurich in the 1970s, IWP&DC was the only international journal on dam engineering and dam construction that was read by dam engineers, contractors and other professionals involved in dam projects - people who usually don’t study papers published in academic journals and conference proceedings. IWP&DC covered ongoing projects as well as new developments in the design, construction, and operation of dams. This year the journal celebrates its 75th anniversary and remains a valuable source of information for professionals working in the dam industry. In order to cover new developments IWP&DC and other international dam journals play an important role in promoting dam safety and good practice in dam engineering including design, construction as well as the operation and maintenance. These are basically also the objectives of ICOLD, which will celebrate its 100th anniversary in 2028.
24 | May 2024 |
www.waterpowermagazine.com
Sustainabilty Today, much is written and spoken about sustainability.
In Western countries the average age of large dams is about the same as that of IWP&DC, which implies that they are safe, provide benefits and thus are sustainable, or otherwise they would have been decommissioned a long time ago. The main factors concerning sustainable dams are dam safety and a long service life, which are the core competence of dam engineers and contractors. But today, sustainability focusses on non- technical aspects only, which is a mistake in the case of civil and building constructions. At the time when dams were built nobody used the term sustainability, because it was understood that the dams will be there for a long time. As a matter of fact, the life span of well-designed, well-constructed and well maintained dams can be very long. For example, Maigrauge dam in Switzerland, the first concrete dam in Europe, built in 1872, is still in operation and satisfies all current safety criteria. The assumption by many of a 50 years life span of dams is completely false.
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