Dams and hydropower plants are important for the supply of clean water and electricity for domestic and industrial use. In many countries flood control and supply of irrigation water are paramount. Dam construction however always affects the social and natural environment both for good and bad.

To control negative environmental impact, risks and costs the optimum dam site, dam height and dam type need to be chosen with due regard to geological and topographical conditions, the availability of construction materials and manpower for construction and operation. Information and points of view need to be collated from all those influenced.

The planning requires a complete picture of the interaction between a dam and the environment during construction and a very long time thereafter including a sound judgement of how correct and complete this picture is. 

Embankment dams and dams of RCC or reinforced concrete are suitable for different geological and topographical conditions and different operating conditions. Irrigation dams are often embankment structures while spillways, intakes and powerplants are almost always constructed of reinforced concrete. In many cases underground location of power plants offer significant advantages.

We have worked with the design of dams, spillways and hydropower plants with dam and spillway heights up to 180 m, spillway capacities of tens of thousands cubic meters per second and power plants up to 900 m in harnessed head and up to 3600 MW in size in countries stretching from the arctic to the tropics incl. Argentina, Brazil, Bolivia, Ecuador, Guyana, Panama, USA, Greenland, Iceland, Sweden, Latvia, Iran, Iraq, Sri Lanka, Pakistan, India, Laos, Vietnam, China, Malaysia, Indonesia, Egypt, Tanzania, Mozambique and Zambia.