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The El Carrizal Dam (in Spanish, Embalse El Carrizal) is a dam on the upper-middle course of the Tunuyán River, in the center-north of the province of Mendoza, Argentina upstream from the city of Rivadavia. Its reservoir measures about 15 by 5 kilometres (9.3 mi × 3.1 mi), and its maximum water level stands at 785.5 metres (2,577 ft) above the sea, covering an area of 31.47 square kilometres (12.15 sq mi). It has a maximum volume of 327 million cubic metres (11.5×109 cu ft).
A dam is a barrier that stops or restricts the flow of water or underground streams. Reservoirs created by dams not only suppress floods but also provide water for activities such as irrigation, human consumption, industrial use, aquaculture, and navigability. Hydropower is often used in conjunction with dams to generate electricity. A dam can also be used to collect water or for storage of water which can be evenly distributed between locations. Dams generally serve the primary purpose of retaining water, while other structures such as floodgates or levees are used to manage or prevent water flow into specific land regions. The earliest known dam is the Jawa Dam in Jordan, dating to 3,000 BC.
The Tunuyán River is a river in the Argentine province of Mendoza. It is born in Mount Tupungato, in the Andes range, and flows initially to the northeast, passing by the city of Tunuyán. It is then dammed by the El Carrizal Dam, after which it turns east-southeast passing near the cities of Rivadavia, Santa Rosa and La Paz. Finally, it branches into the Tunuyán Nuevo (north) and Tunuyán Viejo (south), and empties into the Desaguadero River.
Argentina is subdivided into twenty-three provinces and one autonomous city, Buenos Aires, which is the federal capital of the nation as decided by Congress. The provinces and the capital have their own constitutions, but exist under a federal system.
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The dam is used to regulate the flow of the Tunuyán River, which comes from glacial sources in the Andes, and to irrigate the otherwise arid region. The reservoir is a tourist attraction and is employed for fishing, windsurfing, sailing, etc., while its shores feature camping sites and other lodging facilities.
A glacier is a persistent body of dense ice that is constantly moving under its own weight; it forms where the accumulation of snow exceeds its ablation over many years, often centuries. Glaciers slowly deform and flow due to stresses induced by their weight, creating crevasses, seracs, and other distinguishing features. They also abrade rock and debris from their substrate to create landforms such as cirques and moraines. Glaciers form only on land and are distinct from the much thinner sea ice and lake ice that form on the surface of bodies of water.
The Andes or Andean Mountains are the longest continental mountain range in the world, forming a continuous highland along the western edge of South America. This range is about 7,000 km (4,300 mi) long, about 200 to 700 km wide, and of an average height of about 4,000 m (13,000 ft). The Andes extend from north to south through seven South American countries: Venezuela, Colombia, Ecuador, Peru, Bolivia, Chile and Argentina.
Irrigation is the application of controlled amounts of water to plants at needed intervals. Irrigation helps to grow agricultural crops, maintain landscapes, and revegetate disturbed soils in dry areas and during periods of less than average rainfall. Irrigation also has other uses in crop production, including frost protection, suppressing weed growth in grain fields and preventing soil consolidation. In contrast, agriculture that relies only on direct rainfall is referred to as rain-fed or dry land farming.
The waters of the dam feed a hydroelectric power station, which was built in 1971 and has an installed power generation capacity of 17 megawatts (23,000 hp).
Hydroelectricity is electricity produced from hydropower. In 2015, hydropower generated 16.6% of the world's total electricity and 70% of all renewable electricity, and was expected to increase about 3.1% each year for the next 25 years.
A power station, also referred to as a power plant or powerhouse and sometimes generating station or generating plant, is an industrial facility for the generation of electric power. Most power stations contain one or more generators, a rotating machine that converts mechanical power into electrical power. The relative motion between a magnetic field and a conductor creates an electrical current. The energy source harnessed to turn the generator varies widely. Most power stations in the world burn fossil fuels such as coal, oil, and natural gas to generate electricity. Others use nuclear power, but there is an increasing use of cleaner renewable sources such as solar, wind, wave and hydroelectric.
