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The Nurek (Norak) Dam is a large earth fill dam located at 38.3715 N, 69.3492 E on the Vakhsh River in the central Asian nation of Tajikistan. At 300 meters (984 ft), it is the tallest dam in the world as of 2005. (The Rogun Dam, under construction along the Vakhsh also in Tajikistan, is expected to exceed the Nurek when completed, at a planned height of 335 meters (1,099 ft)). Construction of the dam began in 1961 and was completed in 1980, when Tajikistan was still a republic within the Soviet Union.

Contents 1 Construction 2 Electricity generation 3 Reservoir 4 References 5 External links

The Nurek Dam was constructed by the Soviet Union between the years of 1961 and 1980. It is uniquely constructed, with a central core of cement forming an impermeable barrier within a 300 meter high rock and earth fill construction. The volume of the mound is 54 million m³. The dam includes nine hydroelectric generating units, the first commissioned in 1972 and the last in 1979.

The dam is located in a deep gorge along the Vakhsh River in western Tajikistan, about 75 kilometers east of the nation's capital of Dushanbe. A small town near the dam, also called Nurek, houses engineers and other workers employed at the dam's power plant.

A total of nine hydroelectric turbines are installed in the Nurek Dam. Originally having a generating capacity of 300 megawatts each, they have since been redesigned and retrofitted such that they now combine to produce 3,000 megawatts. As of 1994, this formed most of the nation's 4 gigawatt hydroelectric generating capacity, which was adequate to meet 98% of the nation's electricity needs.

The reservoir formed by the Nurek Dam, known simply as Nurek, is the largest reservoir in Tajikistan with a capacity of 10.5 km³. The reservoir is over 70 kilometers in length, and has a surface area of 98 km². The reservoir fuels the hydroelectric plant located within the dam, and stored water is also used for irrigation of local agricultural land. Irrigation water is transported 14 kilometers through the Dangara irrigation tunnel and is used to irrigate about 700 km² of farmland. It is suspected that the reservoir may be causing induced seismicity.

• "AQUASTAT - FAO's Information System on Water and Agriculture: Tajikistan" (1997). Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, Land and Water Development Division. Retrieved August 16, 2005.
• "Exhibitions to the Beginning of Amudarya". International Conference on Regional Cooperation in Transboundary River Basins. Retrieved August 16, 2005.
• "Highest Dams (World and U.S.)". Stanford University Department of Civil & Environmental Engineering. Retrieved August 16, 2005.

• Aerial photograph showing Nurek Dam, reservoir, and spillway outfall
• Nurek Dam

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Bridges:	Millau Viaduct
Dams:	Rogun Dam (construction) • Nurek Dam • Jinping 1 Hydropower Station (construction)
Electricity pylons:	Yangtze River Crossing
Oil platforms:	Petronius Platform • Baldpate Platform • Bullwinkle Platform • Troll Platform • Gullfaks C

Coordinates: 38°22′N, 69°21′E