Karameh Dam, Jordan: design and construction

The Karameh Dam is located in the Jordan Valley between Lake Tiberias and t he Dead Sea. It is just north of the village of Karameh which lies some 20 km south of the provincial town of Deir Allah. The dam provides a storage r eservoir of 55 million m(3) in the Wadi Mallaha, a minor tributary of the J ordan River. The purpose of the reservoir is to store surplus winter flows in the King Abdullah Canal to allow further development of irrigation at th e southern end of the Jordan Valley immediately north of the Dead Sea. This paper describes the project and the design philosophy behind the developme nt of the chosen embankment cross-section.