GRANDE DIXENCE DAM

Grande Dixence Dam. gravity dam on the Dixence River, Switzerland, completed in 1961. It is 935 feet (285 m) high and 2,280 feet (695 m) wide at the crest, has a volume of 7,848,000 cubic yards (6,000,000 cubic m), and impounds a reservoir of 325,000 acre-feet (401,000,000 cubic m). Grande Dixence was the tallest dam in the world until completion of the Nurek Dam in the Soviet Union in 1980. The dam was built in annual stages, a procedure necessary because the alpine working season is quite short.