Construction of a dam over the Escartana gully close to Albacete, Spain.

Abstract: The main aim of this Master Thesis is the design of several hydraulic structures to decrease as much as possible the huge flooding caused by the Escartana gully which drains its water towards the city of Albacete (Spain) and its surrounding areas, affecting to their inhabitants; and causing huge material damages in residential and industrial areas, and loss of crops in nearby farmland. Some alternatives such as embankment dams with or without drainage systems inside the dam body and a roller-compacted concrete (RCC) dam have been proposed to be built, being necessary to carry out a multicriteria analysis in order to decide which alternative has the best fit according to the analyzed features of the region. The alternative chosen to be developed was the RCC dam for the advantages of this typology, currently in development and implantation in some countries like Spain. For this reason, a RCC dam is planned to be built some kilometers upstream of these areas, with the objective of controlling the future floods coming from this watershed by decreasing its peak flow. In order to increase the beneficial effects of the construction of the dam, a channel downstream is also designed to drain the discharged overflows by the drainage systems of the dam towards a natural endorheic area, the Salobral Lagoon (currently dried-up), located 13 kilometers downstream of the dam’s location. This lagoon is connected hydraulically to the drainage network of Albacete by means of the Salobral channel and due to its huge storage capacity, it allows to reduce substantially the peak flows over the Salobral channel avoiding the dangerous flooding and potential damages caused by them. As a result of the projected hydraulic structures, Albacete and its surrounding areas would increase substantially their protection against the floods coming from the Escartana watershed.