Chabrouh Dam

Greater Beirut's water security rests on the springs of the Kesrouan mountains. The Chabrouh scheme - officially Barrage Emile Lahoud - was conceived to capture the Chabrouh, Laban and Nabaa El Aassal springs and combine storage, treatment and transfer into a single supply chain for the capital region.

Libanconsult was lead design and supervision consultant across the entire project: the original dam design (1986-1990, updated 2001-2002), construction supervision of the dam itself (2003-2008) for the Ministry of Energy and Water, and the associated treatment plant and transfer works completed in 2007-2008.

The dam is a rockfill structure with a bituminous upstream face, 63 m high and 450 m long, impounding 8 million m3. It is served by a tulip spillway 11 m in diameter passing 180 m3/s, a four-tower intake structure and a transfer tunnel of 3 to 4.6 m diameter. The Laban-Chabrouh transfer carries 2 m3/s through 5.2 km of DN 1000 line; the Chabrouh-Nabaa El Aassal transfer carries 0.7 m3/s of drinking water in DN 800 and 0.1 m3/s of irrigation water in DN 400. The Chabrouh Water Treatment Plant is rated at 60,000 m3/day. Supervision covered shop drawing review, dam fill monitoring, grouting control, quality assurance and commissioning of all ancillary structures.

Chabrouh is one of Lebanon's largest dam-based water supply schemes and a cornerstone of Greater Beirut's raw and treated water security.