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How Dams Hold Back a River: The Science, History, and Future of Taming Rivers with Concrete and Steel
Paperback
Publisher: Independently Published
Published: Jul 23 2026
Pages: 134
Weight: 0.54
Height: 0.29 Width: 7.00 Depth: 10.00
Language: English
A great dam holds back a lake weighing millions of tons, generation after generation, with nothing but concrete, steel, and a profound understanding of force. How do engineers tame a river, and what happens when they get it wrong?
Edward Callenford explores the science, history, and future of the dam: why an arch dam can be thinner than you would ever dare while a gravity dam relies on sheer mass, how water pressure and uplift threaten to overturn or slide a structure, why spillways and foundations decide life and death, and what the failures of the past taught a cautious profession. He weighs the immense benefits, power, water, flood control, against the human and environmental costs that make dams among the most consequential structures we build.
Balanced, vivid, and illustrated with original diagrams, this is the definitive popular guide to the concrete giants that reshape rivers and nations.
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