The Zambezi River Authority, represented by CE, Eng. Munayaradzi Munodawafa; Director of Projects and Dam Safety, Eng. David Mazvidza; Director of Water Resources and Environmental Management, Eng. Christopher Chisense and Senior Project Manager of the Kariba Dam Rehabilitation Project, Eng. Mhlanga, recently attended the 2018 ICOLD 26th World Congress in Vienna, Austria.
Now in its 90th year, ICOLD brings together the crème de la crème of the engineering fraternity at its three-yearly congresses, annual meetings and symposiums. This year’s congress also combined the 86th Annual Meeting and the ATCOLD Hydro Engineering Symposium.
The International Commission on Large Dams (ICOLD) is an international non-governmental organisation dedicated to sharing professional knowledge and experience pertaining to the design, construction, maintenance and impact of large dams like Kariba and Batoka. The formal technical programme included lectures, presentations and discussion groups attended by participants from around the world led by experts in their fields. Study tours to high-head pumped storage plants, run-of-river plants, examples of Austrian dams at high elevation in the Alps and an exhibition programme which included global engineering, hydropower, dam instrumentation and equipment manufacturing firms, complemented the formal technical programme.
Besides the benefits of the technical programme, ICOLD is the industry networking platform allowing the ZRA to explore business opportunities and to share its dam construction, operation and maintenance experience and the unique challenges presented by the Kariba Dam Rehabilitation Project (KDRP) with international experts.
Progress on the plunge pool reshaping component of the KDRP is steady with the contractor, Razel Bec, currently constructing concrete platforms for the location of the tower crane that will be used during the construction of the cofferdam.
Construction tenders for the spillway rehabilitation component of the KDRP closed have closed and their evaluation is underway.
The KDRP is funded jointly by the European Union, World Bank, African Development Bank, the Swedish government and the Zambezi River Authority on behalf of the governments of Zambia and Zimbabwe.
