DAM SITE SELECTION BY AN AUTOMATIC DAM DESIGN PROCESS 
AND A GIS 
Mu-Lin Wu, Professor 
Civil Engineering Department 
National Pingtung Polytech Institute 
P. O. Box 17-164 
Taichung, Taiwan 40098, R. O. C. 
Tel. 886-4-2806885 Fax. 886-4-2833825 
Cheng-nan Tsai, Division Chief 
Shyh-Chei Chou, Associate Engineer 
Planning Team 
Taiwan Provincial Water Conservancy Bureau 
SF., 501, Sec. 2, Li-ming Road, Taichung, Taiwan, R. O. C. 
Tel. 886-4-2528024 Fax. 886-4-2524742 
ABSTRACT 
Taiwan Provincial Water Conservancy Bureau (TPWCB) is in charge of water 
resource development and management in Taiwan. Dam site selection is a complicate 
process of planning and decision making. A software module has been developed to 
provide what combinations of height, area, and volume might happen when a dam site 
has been decided. A dam engineering design is a very delicate process which can 
provide very detail information for a dam construction. This paper discussed how an 
automatic process was developed to design a dam by a personal computer. The first 
step is to prepare a large scale digital contour map. Then a designer was asked to give 
a height of a dam and to draw its longitudinal axis on a color monitor by clicking a 
computer mouse. A personal computer will take care the rest process automatically. 
All kinds of drawing and calculation will be provided. A geographic information 
system was used to evaluate as 1f this proposed dam has been constructed. The whole 
process is quite simple and less than 30 minutes are required. An engineer can design 
as many dams as he likes. An optimal design for a given type of dam at a given site 
can be obtained. 
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