Curated global dam and reservoir data for all

Global Dam Watch is an international collaboration which aims to improve our understanding of the costs and benefits of dams to our world by providing open access data and tools focused on dams and reservoirs


Dams, reservoirs, and other water management infrastructure provide many benefits, but also generate risks. Dam construction and removal affects progress toward the UN sustainable development goals (SDGs) at local to global scales. However,  globally-consistent information on the location and characteristics of these structures are lacking, and information is often highly localised, fragmented, or inaccessible.  

Our mission is to work across disciplines and scales to gather, curate and share high quality open-access, georeferenced regional and global dam data and knowledge. 

We focus on three outputs: 

See our open access introductory paper on GDW in Environmental Research for further details of our mission and objectives.

Want to get involved