Burrendong Dam

Burrendong Dam is a rock-fill embankment major gated dam with a clay core across the Macquarie River upstream of Wellington in the central west region of New South Wales, Australia. The dam's purpose includes flood mitigation, irrigation, water supply and hydro-electric power generation. The dam impounds Lake Burrendong and is filled by the waters from the Macquarie and Cudgegong rivers and Meroo Creek.Location and featuresCommenced in 1958 and completed in 1967, the Burrendong Dam is a major dam on the Macquarie River, within the Macquarie Valley, approximately southeast of Wellington. The dam was built by the New South Wales Water Conservation & Irrigation Commission for the purposes of providing flood mitigation, irrigation, and water supply.The dam wall height is and is long. The water depth is and at 100% capacity the water level is AHD. The surface area of the dam is, and the catchment area of the dam is. At 100%, Burrendong Dam has a capacity of. On top of this the dam has a further flood mitigation capacity of. The spillway on the dam is a gated concrete chute, with a release capacity of.Burrendong Dam has twice been recorded at a critically low level of 1.5% in drought. In contrast, however, Burrendong has mitigated potentially devastating floods downstream by using its flood capacity and releasing water in accordance with downstream tributary flows, safely reaching 160% of capacity in 1990 and 152.8% in 2010.