Flood Defense and Water/Sediment Management—With Particular Reference to The Yellow River - River Dynamics and Integrated River Management - page 369

people spoke highly on the reservoir. Sanmenxia Reservoir was awarded as the great achievement in
hydro-construction in China. It is a great practice in the training of heavy sediment load rivers. The half
century of safety in the lower Yellow River and development of the river basin is attributed to the
operation of the reservoir, which played an important role in flood control, ice-jam flood control, power
generation, irrigation, and water supply. Moreover, scientists and engineers have accumulated experiences
from the management of the reservoir for design and operation of dams on high sediment concentration
rivers. Sanmenxia reservoir is a mistake or a great achievement? What we should learn from Sanmenxia
Reservoir? The following section is attributed to the Sanmenxia Reservoir.
6.5.1 Sanmenxia Reservoir
The Sanmenxia Dam, 105-m high and 739-m long, was the first large dam on the Yellow River. The crest
elevation of the dam is 353 m and the designed reservoir capacity is 35.4 billion m 3 with a normal pool
level of 350 m. The main purposes of the dam are flood control, ice jam flood control, trapping sediment
to reduce the downstream channel sedimentation, power generation, and irrigation. The reservoir controls
a drainage area of 688,000 km 2 and 89% of the total runoff of the Yellow River basin. The reservoir area
is shown in Fig. 6.39, in which the lower Weihe River is a part of the reservoir. Design of the dam and
the reservoir was conduced by the Yellow River Conservation Commission (YRCC) under the guidance
of Russian experts from the Soviet Union (ECASP, 1993).The heavy sediment load was considered and
the designer planned a big part of the reservoir capacity for sediment deposition, which is mainly in the
Yellow River.
The construction of the dam was initiated in 1957 and water impoundment commenced in September
1960. The reservoir area extends upstream a distance of 246 km to Longmen. The Yellow River flows
Fig. 6.39 Sanmenxia Reservoir area (enclosed by 360 m contour line) and the Weihe River, in which the Tongguan
Hydrological Station on the Yellow River, and the Huaxian, Weinan, Lintong, and Xianyang stations on the Weihe River
are indicated