Gileppe Dam - Credit: Wikimedia Commons
Gileppe Dam - Credit: Wikimedia Commons
The Gileppe Dam (French Barrage de la Gileppe) is an arch-gravity dam on the Gileppe river in Jalhay, Liège province, Wallonia, Belgium. It was built in the 1870s to supply water for the wool industry in nearby Verviers. The monumental structure with its unusually thick profile played an important role in establishing an international standard for masonry gravity dams as a technology for major water supply systems.David P. Billington and Donald C. Jackson, Big Dams of the New Deal Era: A Confluence of Engineering and Politics (University of Oklahoma Press, 2006), p. 34 online. It was considered one of the strongest dams in Europe at the time,R.S. Kirby, P.G. Laurson, The Early Years of Modern Civil Engineering (Yale University Press, 1932), p. 209. and it was the first dam built in modern Belgium.Easton Devonshire, "The Gileppe Dam," Transactions of the British Association of Waterworks Engineers 9 (1904), p. 263 online, quoting a report to the Belgian government by the project's chief engineer. In the first decade of the 21st century, it was noted as supplying most of the drinking water for Verviers, as well as industrial water, and as producing hydroelectricity.David Aubin and Frédéric Varone, EUwareness Case Study Report 1: Vesdre River Basin, Belgium (Université Catholique de Louvain, 2002), pp. 7 and 15. Read more on Wikipedia
Source: en.wikipedia.org