Authors: Wing Cheung Tang
Abstract: Embankment dams, built with locally available earth and rock materials, are the dominant dam type in China, representing over 90% of the country’s approximately 98,000 dams. The review covers the history, technology, design methods, safety concepts, and new frontiers of embankment dam engineering in China in a comprehensive way. The analysis is a development path from ancient earthen embankments (c. 600 BCE) to today’s 300 metre class ultra-high earth core rockfill dams. China’s engineering accomplishments are placed in a four-phase historical context: arduous initiation (1904–1949), independent entrepreneurship (1950–1979), catch up (1980–1999), and breakthrough development (2000–present). Emphasis is placed on the critical nexus of embankment dam safety and contemporary challenges, such as ageing infrastructure (approximately 90,000 dams from the 1950s–1970s now exceeding or approaching design life), seismic vulnerability in tectonically active western China (PGA up to 0.5 g), increasing extreme hydrological events due to climate change, and unique biological hazards, including termite induced internal erosion. The review embraces recent developments in intelligent construction, deformation control theory, seepage remediation technologies and seismic response analysis. Key knowledge gaps are identified; long term rockfill creep behaviour; scale effects in material testing; climate change implications for spillway adequacy; risk-based decision frameworks for ageing infrastructure and integration of monitoring data into predictive models. China’s embankment dam enterprise has been argued to have moved from a technological follower to a global leader. The need remains to consolidate risk informed safety management and remediation investment for the vast inventory of ageing medium and low height dams. Research priorities and policy recommendations are presented in the concluding review.
DOI: http://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.20572917
