I hear all the time that lakes are drained to build dams/create farmland, divert resources, etc. I imagine Mother Nature did not give each body of water a drain plug to pull, so how does it happen? Where does the water go? How do engineers make the water go? Is the process for refilling them similar?
In: Engineering
When you have to drain an area of water, you have to create a reservoir for the water to move into. It has to be lower in elevation than the original body, and then you need to make a channel that connects the two bodies. The channel is cut at a downward slope from the original, creating a “slide” effect which causes all the water from the original body to drain into the lower elevation.
Refilling is a bit harder. You have to close off the channel and pump the water back up.
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