Neckartal Dam

The project was built by Webuild in the southern part of the nationa, in the Karas region along the Fish River. It is the first phase of the Neckartal Irrigation Scheme (NIS), whcih includes irrigation to develop the area's agricultural development.

The Neckartal Dam was inaugurated in March 2020. It is located approximately 40 km west of Keetmanshoop, and is a curved gravity dam, Namibia's largest: built in RCC - Roller Compacted Concrete it stands approximately 80 metres in height, measuring 518 metres at crest length, with a volume of approximately 850,000 cubic metres. 

 The work uses the Fish River waters to create renewable energy and Namibia's largest water basin, with a 857-million-cubic-metre capacity and an area of approximately 40 square kilometres.

The project also included building the intermediate weir (360 metres in length and 9 metres high), located 13 kilometres downhill, a pumping station, a steel water pipe (1.1 metres in diameter and 10 km long) and a flood gate to build a storage basin capable of holding 90,000 cubic metres of water. 
 

Client:  Ministry of Water, Agriculture and Forestry

The water of the Neckartal dam is used to produce renewable energy with two 1.5 MW Francis turbines to activate the pumping station located at the intermediate weir. The water is then sent to the flood gate through a approximately 10-km-long pipe where it is then sent towards an irrigation system covering 5,000 hectares.

The idea of a dam on the Fish River, was thought more than a century ago by German colonizers and greatly impacted the territory. During construction 5,500 jobs were created, of which 3,000 direct ones and approximately 2,500 indirect ones, and 65% of these jobs were given to people of the Karas region. The project set a very important benchmark when it comes to Safety for the Southern African region, as 1.1 million hours were worked without accidents.