Dam in the context of Surface water

A beaver dam or beaver impoundment is a dam built by beavers; it creates a pond which protects against predators and holds food during winter. These structures modify the natural environment in such a way that the overall ecosystem builds upon the change, making beavers a keystone species and ecosystem engineers. They build prolifically at night, carrying mud with their forepaws and timber between their teeth.

Public works are a broad category of infrastructure projects, financed and procured by a government body for recreational, employment, and health and safety uses in the greater community. They include public buildings (municipal buildings, schools, and hospitals), transport infrastructure (roads, railroads, bridges, pipelines, canals, ports, and airports), public spaces (public squares, parks, and beaches), public services (water supply and treatment, sewage treatment, electrical grid, and dams), environmental protection (drinking water protection, soil erosion reduction,wildlife habitat preservation, preservation and restoration of forests and wetlands) and other, usually long-term, physical assets and facilities. Though often interchangeable with public infrastructure and public capital, public works does not necessarily carry an economic component, thereby being a broader term. Construction may be undertaken either by directly employed labour or by a private operator.

Public works has been encouraged since antiquity. The Roman emperor Nero encouraged the construction of various infrastructure projects during widespread deflation.

Canals or artificial waterways are waterways or engineered channels built for drainage management (e.g. flood control and irrigation) or for conveyancing water transport vehicles (e.g. water taxi). They carry free, calm surface flow under atmospheric pressure, and can be thought of as artificial rivers.

In most cases, a canal has a series of dams and locks that create reservoirs of low speed current flow. These reservoirs are referred to as slack water levels, often just called levels. A canal can be called a navigation canal when it parallels a natural river and shares part of the latter's discharges and drainage basin, and leverages its resources by building dams and locks to increase and lengthen its stretches of slack water levels while staying in its valley.

The Neretva (pronounced [něreːtʋa], Serbian Cyrillic: Неретва), also known as Narenta, is one of the largest rivers of the eastern part of the Adriatic basin. Four hydroelectric power plants with large dams (higher than 15 metres) provide flood protection, electricity and water storage. The Neretva is recognized for its natural environment and diverse landscapes.

Freshwater ecosystems have suffered from an increasing population and the associated development pressures. One of the most valuable natural resources of Bosnia and Herzegovina and Croatia is its freshwater resource, contained by an abundant wellspring and clear rivers. Situated between the major regional rivers (Drina river on the east, Una river on the west and the Sava river) the Neretva basin contains the most significant source of drinking water.

A body of water or waterbody is any significant accumulation of water on the surface of Earth or another planet. The term most often refers to oceans, seas, and lakes, but it includes smaller pools of water such as ponds, wetlands, or more rarely, puddles. A body of water does not have to be still or contained; rivers, streams, canals, and other geographical features where water moves from one place to another are also considered bodies of water.

Most are naturally occurring and massive geographical features, but some are artificial. There are types that can be either. For example, most reservoirs are created by engineering dams, but some natural lakes are used as reservoirs. Similarly, most harbors are naturally occurring bays, but some harbors have been created through construction.

Amsterdam (Dutch: [ˌɑmstərˈdɑm] ; lit. 'Dam in the Amstel') is the capital and largest city of the Netherlands. It has a population of 933,680 in June 2024 within the city proper, 1,457,018 in the urban area and 2,480,394 in the metropolitan area. Located in the Dutch province of North Holland, Amsterdam is colloquially referred to as the "Venice of the North", for its large number of canals, now a UNESCO World Heritage Site.

Amsterdam was founded at the mouth of the Amstel River, which was dammed to control flooding. Originally a small fishing village in the 12th century, Amsterdam became a major world port during the Dutch Golden Age of the 17th century, when the Netherlands was an economic powerhouse. Amsterdam was the leading centre for finance and trade, as well as a hub of secular art production. In the 19th and 20th centuries, the city expanded and new neighborhoods and suburbs were built. The city has a long tradition of openness, liberalism, and tolerance. Cycling is key to the city's modern character, and there are numerous biking paths and lanes spread throughout.

Rotterdam (/ˈrɒtərdæm/ ROT-ər-dam, UK also /ˌrɒtərˈdæm/ ROT-ər-DAM; Dutch: [ˌrɔtərˈdɑm] ; lit. 'The Dam on the River Rotte') is the second-largest city in the Netherlands by population and the largest by area (319.4 km²). It is in the province of South Holland, part of the North Sea mouth of the Rhine–Meuse–Scheldt delta, via the New Meuse inland shipping channel, dug to connect to the Meuse at first and now to the Rhine.

Rotterdam's history goes back to 1270, when a dam was constructed in the Rotte. In 1340, Rotterdam was granted city rights by William IV, Count of Holland. The Rotterdam–The Hague metropolitan area, with a population of approximately 2.7 million, is the 10th-largest in the European Union and the most populous in the country.

Community-owned assets or organizations are those that are owned and controlled through some representative mechanisms that allow a community to influence their operation or use and to enjoy the benefits arising.

Benefits of ownership in infrastructure projects such as dams and irrigation are claimed to include increased responsiveness to needs of that community and the community valuing the projects more highly.

A reservoir (/ˈrɛzərvwɑːr/; from French réservoir [ʁezɛʁvwaʁ]) is an enlarged lake behind a dam, usually built to store fresh water, often doubling for hydroelectric power generation.

Reservoirs are created by controlling a watercourse that drains an existing body of water, interrupting a watercourse to form an embayment within it, excavating, or building any number of retaining walls or levees to enclose any area to store water.

A moat is a deep, broad ditch dug around a castle, fortification, building, or town, historically to provide it with a preliminary line of defence. Moats can be dry or filled with water. In some places, moats evolved into more extensive water defences, including natural or artificial lakes, dams and sluices. In older fortifications, such as hillforts, they are usually referred to simply as ditches, although the function is similar. In later periods, moats or water defences may be largely ornamental. They could also act as a sewer.

A water wheel is a machine for converting the kinetic energy of flowing or falling water into useful forms of power, often in a watermill. A water wheel consists of a large wheel (usually constructed from wood or metal), with numerous blades or buckets attached to the outer rim forming the drive mechanism. Water wheels were still in commercial use well into the 20th century, although they are no longer in common use today. Water wheels are used for milling flour in gristmills, grinding wood into pulp for papermaking, hammering wrought iron, machining, ore crushing and pounding fibre for use in the manufacture of cloth.

Some water wheels are fed by water from a mill pond, which is formed when a flowing stream is dammed. A channel for the water flowing to or from a water wheel is called a mill race. The race bringing water from the mill pond to the water wheel is a headrace; the one carrying water after it has left the wheel is commonly referred to as a tailrace.

The head of navigation is the farthest point above the mouth of a river that can be navigated by ships. Determining the head of navigation can be subjective on many streams, as the point may vary greatly with the size or the draft of the ship being contemplated for navigation and the seasonal water level. On others, it is quite objective, being caused by a waterfall, a low bridge that is not a drawbridge, or a dam without navigation locks. Several rivers in a region may have their heads of navigation along a line called the fall line.

Longer rivers such as the River Thames may have several heads of navigation depending on the size of the vessel. In the case of the Thames, that includes London Bridge, which historically served as the head of navigation for tall ships; Osney Bridge in Oxford, which has the lowest headroom of any bridge on the Thames that generally restricts navigation to smaller vessels such as narrowboats and cabin cruisers, and the long reach above St John's Lock, the first lock downstream of the river’s source, on the outskirts of Lechlade, where the river can become treacherously narrow and shallow for anything but small motorboats and human-powered vessels.

Kōchi Prefecture (高知県, Kōchi-ken; Japanese pronunciation: [koꜜː.tɕi, koː.tɕi̥ꜜ.keɴ], locally [koː.tɕi]) is a prefecture of Japan located on the island of Shikoku. Kōchi Prefecture has a population of 669,516 (1 April 2023) and has a geographic area of 7,103 km (2,742 sq mi). Kōchi Prefecture borders Ehime Prefecture to the northwest and Tokushima Prefecture to the northeast.

Kōchi is the capital and largest city of Kōchi Prefecture, with other major cities including Nankoku, Shimanto, and Kōnan. Kōchi Prefecture is located on Japan's Pacific coast surrounding a large bay in the south of Shikoku, with the southernmost point of the island located at Cape Ashizuri in Tosashimizu. Kōchi Prefecture is home to Kōchi Castle, considered the most intact Japanese castle, and the Shimanto River, one of the few undammed rivers in Japan.

Hydraulic engineering as a sub-discipline of civil engineering is concerned with the flow and conveyance of fluids, principally water and sewage. One feature of these systems is the extensive use of gravity as the motive force to cause the movement of the fluids. This area of civil engineering is intimately related to the design of bridges, dams, channels, canals, and levees, and to both sanitary and environmental engineering.

Hydraulic engineering is the application of the principles of fluid mechanics to problems dealing with the collection, storage, control, transport, regulation, measurement, and use of water. Before beginning a hydraulic engineering project, one must figure out how much water is involved. The hydraulic engineer is concerned with the transport of sediment by the river, the interaction of the water with its alluvial boundary, and the occurrence of scour and deposition. "The hydraulic engineer actually develops conceptual designs for the various features which interact with water such as spillways and outlet works for dams, culverts for highways, canals and related structures for irrigation projects, and cooling-water facilities for thermal power plants."

Hydraulics (from Ancient Greek ὕδωρ (húdōr) 'water' and αὐλός (aulós) 'pipe') is a technology and applied science using engineering, chemistry, and other sciences involving the mechanical properties and use of liquids. At a very basic level, hydraulics is the liquid counterpart of pneumatics, which concerns gases. Fluid mechanics provides the theoretical foundation for hydraulics, which focuses on applied engineering using the properties of fluids. In its fluid power applications, hydraulics is used for the generation, control, and transmission of power by the use of pressurized liquids. Hydraulic topics range through some parts of science and most of engineering modules, and they cover concepts such as pipe flow, dam design, fluidics, and fluid control circuitry. The principles of hydraulics are naturally in use in the human body within the vascular system and erectile tissue.

Free surface hydraulics is the branch of hydraulics dealing with free surface flow, such as occurring in rivers, canals, lakes, estuaries, and seas. Its sub-field open-channel flow studies the flow in open channels.

The Olmsted Locks and Dam is a locks and wicket dam on the Ohio River at river mile 964.4. The project is intended to reduce tow and barge delays by replacing the existing older, and frequently congested, locks and dams Number 52 and Number 53. The locks are located about 17 miles upstream from the confluence of the Ohio and Mississippi rivers at Olmsted, Illinois.

The Olmsted has been operational since August 2018 while the removal of Locks and Dams 52 and 53 was completed in 2023. The project is both the largest and the most expensive inland waterway project ever undertaken in the United States.

The Arda (Bulgarian: Арда [ˈardɐ], Greek: Άρδας [ˈarðas], Turkish: Arda [ˈaɾda]) is a 290-kilometre-long (180 mi) river in Bulgaria and Greece. It is a tributary of the Maritsa (or Evros). Its source lies in the Bulgarian Rhodope Mountains near the village Arda, part of the municipality of Smolyan. It flows eastward past Rudozem, Kardzhali and Ivaylovgrad and enters Greece in the northern part of the Evros regional unit. It flows into the Maritsa on the border of Greece and Turkey, between the Greek village Kastanies and the Turkish city Edirne. In the Bulgarian section, there are three hydroelectric and irrigation dams, Kardzhali Dam, Studen Kladenets and Ivaylovgrad Dam. The Bulgarian section is 229 kilometres (142 mi) long, making the Arda the longest river in the Rhodopes. The medieval Dyavolski most arch bridge crosses the river 10 kilometres (6 mi) from Ardino.

The three floods of February 18, 2005, when the water level was at 4.8 metres (16 ft), March 1 and March 7, 2005, flooded the low-lying areas, especially the Kastanies area which turned into a lagoon. The merging of the waters of the Maritsa (Evros/Meriç) caused streets and buildings including homes to be flooded, leaving people stranded in their homes.