Hydraulic studies for the Taoussa project, Mali

The Taoussa Project is a component of a large development scheme of the Niger River in the north-eastern part of Mali aiming at reducing desertification and improving socio-economic activity. It is mainly made of a rockfill dam with central core around 18 m high and 1,000 m long across the valley of the Niger River, 130 km upstream of the town of Gao in the eastern part of Mali. The dam is equipped with a 25 MW hydroelectric power plant, a lock, a dock and a spillway. The spillway is made of a gated ogee crested weir divided into 10 bays and a downstream stilling basin, with a maximum discharge capacity of 3,100 m³/s. 210 km of high tension overhead cables and a 130 km long road complete the Project. The multipurpose Taoussa dam will enable the sustainable development of the Project area by securing water resources, increasing low-water level discharges downstream, creating a link between road and fluvial transports (dock) and producing electricity.

The Ministère de l’Energie, des Mines et de l’Eau du Mali - Autorité pour l’Aménagement de Taoussa -commissioned Coyne et Bellier – Tractebel Engineering in 2006 to perform the detailed studies for the Project. In this framework, the hydraulic studies have been performed by the Laboratory of Engineering Hydraulics (HECE) of the University of Liege. These hydraulic studies, depicted in details in the paper, have been carried out successively by two complementary approaches: a first step realized on the basis of numerical modelling to study the flows at the scale of the reservoir and the river, and a second experimental investigation, using a scale model, to analyse in details the spillway operation conditions. They consider varied problems from large scale flow conditions in the reservoir during the spillway operation and hydrodynamic interactions between the dam, the lock and the hydroelectric power plant to validation and optimization of the hydraulic design and dimensions of the gated spillway and the stilling basin or release conditions downstream of the project structures, including the temporary derivation stage.