page_title: Wivenhoe Dam
section_title: Purpose
hierarchical_section_title: Wivenhoe Dam / Location and features / Purpose
caption_attribution_description: English: Wivenhoe Dam Flood release 2010
context_page_description: The Wivenhoe Dam is a rock and earth-fill embankment dam with a concrete spillway across the Brisbane River in South East Queensland, Australia. The dam wall is located about 80 kilometres by road from the centre of Brisbane. The primary purpose of the dam is the supply of potable water for the Brisbane and Ipswich regions. In addition, the dam also provides for flood mitigation control, hydroelectricity and for recreation. The impounded reservoir is called Lake Wivenhoe and the dam, the lake and a narrow strip of surrounding land forms a locality also called Lake Wivenhoe.
  Wivenhoe Dam was planned in the early 1970s. The 1974 Brisbane flood highlighted the need for flood protection for South East Queensland. The lake also forms part of the water storages for the Wivenhoe Power Station.
context_section_description: The dam was designed as a response to the floods that damaged Brisbane in 1974. Built in the late 1970s – early 1980s as a multifunction facility by a consortium of construction companies including Thiess Brothers, Wivenhoe Dam provides a safe water supply to the people of Brisbane and adjacent regions. Additionally, Wivenhoe Dam serves as the lower storage in a pumped-storage, hydro-electric generating facility, the Wivenhoe Power Station. The upper reservoir is formed by Splityard Creek Dam, of earth and rock construction, with a capacity of 28,700 megalitres (6,300,000×10³ imp gal; 7,600,000×10³ US gal). Under normal conditions the dam supplies water via pipeline to both Tarong Power Station and Tarong North Power Station, but during drought conditions only supplies water to Tarong North.
caption: The dam is used to mitigate floods and provide drinking water
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