Carcoar Dam
Encyclopedia
Carcoar Dam is a concrete arch dam
Arch dam
An arch dam is a type of dam that is curved and commonly built with concrete. The arch dam is a structure that is designed to curve upstream so that the force of the water against it, known as hydrostatic pressure, presses against the arch, compressing and strengthening the structure as it pushes...

 with a free overflow type spillway across the Belubula River
Belubula River
The Belubula River is a river of the state of New South Wales in Australia. It flows from Vittoria State Forest South of Vittoria to its confluence with the Lachlan River, East of Gooloogong....

 6 kilometres (3.7 mi) upstream of Carcoar
Carcoar, New South Wales
Carcoar is a town in the Central West region of New South Wales, Australia, in Blayney Shire. In 2006, the town had a population of 218 people. It is situated just off the Mid-Western Highway 258 km west of Sydney and 52 km south-west of Bathurst and is 720 m above sea-level...

. It is 57 metres (187 ft) high and 187 metres (613.5 ft) long and holds back 35,800 megalitres of water when at full capacity. The dam uses a free-flowing spillway which is capable of discharging 105,000 megalitres of water per day.

Water from the dam is released directly into the Belubula River which is used by irrigators downstream of the dam.

The dam is unique in that its wall is not only curved from side-to-side but also from top to bottom.

Carcoar Wetland

In the early 1990s, the NSW
New South Wales
New South Wales is a state of :Australia, located in the east of the country. It is bordered by Queensland, Victoria and South Australia to the north, south and west respectively. To the east, the state is bordered by the Tasman Sea, which forms part of the Pacific Ocean. New South Wales...

 government assisted to establish wetlands at Carcoar Dam in an effort to control blue-green algae which had made the dam unusable for recreation and made the water discharged from the dam unusable, even for domestic animals. The purpose of the wetland was to act as a nutrient sink which could capture nutrients prior to them entering the reservoir.
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