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Knight Piésold Construction of Neckartal Dam and Phase 1 Bulk Water Supply, Namibia
PROJECT TEAM Client: Namibia’s Ministry of Agriculture, Water and Land Reform
Consulting engineer:
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The Neckartal Dam and Phase 1 Bulk Water Supply project, inaugurated on 13 March 2020 by Namibian Vice President Dr Nangolo Mbumba, is a
symbol of hope for a Namibia recovering from a series of droughts.
The project is part of a vital new infrastructure plan that will deliver water to
the Karas Region in southern Namibia. It will
provide irrigation for about 1 960 ha of land, promoting agriculture and employment in the subeconomic area of the country.
Designed by Knight Piésold Consulting and
constructed by Salini-Impregilo SpA (now Webuild SpA), the dam is the largest in Namibia and located 40 km west of the small town of Keetmanshoop. Its completion marks the first phase of the Neckartal Irrigation Scheme,
which, through irrigation, will improve the region’s agricultural development. The project
may be extended in future with a second phase, which will increase the irrigatable land
to approximately 5 000 ha.
The Fish River’s water volume, impounded by the dam, through deliberate releases, will flow downstream for 13 km to reach an abstraction weir. From there, quantities
of water will be pumped from the adjacent pump station to a holding dam in an
approximately 9 km long steel pipeline 1.1 m in diameter, from where it will be routed to the irrigation areas for agricultural use as needed.
The dam was built using the rollercompacted concrete construction technique
and is 78.5 m high with a crest length of
518 m. The dam has a storage volume of
857 million m3, extending over a 39 km2
surface area at its full supply level.
Construction required over 1.1 million man-hours over a period from 2018 to 2020, where zero workdays were lost due to injury – a record-breaking health and safety feat for the contractor. In Keetmanshoop and the surrounding areas, the project created a total of 5 500 jobs; 3 000 workers were hired directly and 2 500 indirectly, with 65% of these workers coming from the Karas Region.
Now complete, this environmentally sustainable project has ensured ongoing water supply and food security.
