About the Client

Algeria aspires to protect its water resources and to provide a sustainable answer to water supply and management issues by carrying out a national water plan. The National Agency for Dams and Water Transfer (ANBT) manages 75 dams in Algeria, dams which in recent years have about 70% water reserve thanks to heavy rainfall. Volume has reached 4.5 billion cubic meters in all dams and Kinemetrics was chosen to provide an Earthquake Monitoring solution in the Barrage Oued That and in the Barrage Soubella.

Project Objective

Create a network of smart, IP-ready distributed Strong Motion Accelerograph (SMA) Stations that are connected in real-time to the dam control room using the Kinemetrics iDAM platform. The system is   designed to meet the objectives of Seismic Dam Monitoring and Alerting. iDAM Remote SMA Stations are equipped with Etna 2 Accelerographs and housed in NEMA4 Enclosures. The SMA’ connection to the dam control room is done by Fiber Optic. Kinemetrics’ ETNA 2 has built-in relays to report locally Alarms in case of acceleration threshold exceedance and/or State-of-Health (SOH) conditions. The system is designed to work 24/7 year after year. 

Project Achievement

A state-of-the-art Seismic Monitoring System was installed at both the Barrage Oued That and the Barrage Soubella in Algeria. Fiber Optic cables assured fast data speeds and interference-free connection throughout the dam, up to the control room. The systems at both dams are designed to connect remotely to the ANBT Data Center in Algiers. Then, a sophisticated processing tool calculates in real-time, an earthquake spectra and generates alarms in case of exceedance of design spectra at any frequency.