Qualla: Sélingué Dam https://qualla.com/selingue-dam en-us © 2026 Bendyline Wed, 08 Jul 2026 02:40:09 GMT Qualla serial false Qualla support@bendyline.com yes https://qualla.com/_m/e/f/4/4/selingue-dam-wp/hero-small.webp Qualla: Sélingué Dam https://qualla.com/selingue-dam Sélingué Dam: Introduction https://qualla.com/selingue-dam/ Photo credit Carport, CC BY-SA 3.0. Before there was a lake, there were villages. Then, in 1982, the river stopped moving. Engineers closed the Sélingué Dam across the Sankarani, a tributary of the great Niger, and the water rose behind a wall of compacted earth more than two and a half kilometers long. Where families had farmed and fished for generations, a new sea spread out across the lowlands of southern Mali. The dam gave the country something it badly needed: steady electricity for a growing capital. It also asked a price that fell hardest on the people who lived closest to the water.

Read more: Sélingué Dam on Qualla

Image: Carport | CC BY-SA 3.0

]]> Sun, 14 Jun 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/e/f/4/4/selingue-dam-wp/ef44-s-lingu-dam-intro.mp3 0:06 1 full Sélingué Dam: A River Persuaded to Stop https://qualla.com/selingue-dam/ Photo credit Carport, CC BY-SA 3.0. The Sankarani rises in the highlands and runs north to join the Niger, the artery that gives Mali its life. At Sélingué, planners saw potential: a place where the river could be held back and put to work. The structure they built is an embankment dam with a gravity section, modes...

Read more: Sélingué Dam on Qualla

Image: Carport | CC BY-SA 3.0

]]> Sun, 14 Jun 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/e/f/4/4/selingue-dam-wp/ef44-s-lingu-dam-a-river-persuaded-to-stop.mp3 0:06 2 full Sélingué Dam: The Lake That Wasn't There https://qualla.com/selingue-dam/ Photo credit Carport, CC BY-SA 3.0. When full, Lake Sélingué holds 2.2 cubic kilometers of water and covers 409 square kilometers, its surface reaching a maximum height of around 349 meters above sea level. But it is a restless lake. The water rises and falls dramatically through the year, swelling with the rains a...

Read more: Sélingué Dam on Qualla

Image: Carport | CC BY-SA 3.0

]]> Sun, 14 Jun 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/e/f/4/4/selingue-dam-wp/ef44-s-lingu-dam-the-lake-that-wasnt-there.mp3 0:06 3 full Sélingué Dam: What the Water Covered https://qualla.com/selingue-dam/ Photo credit Carport, CC BY-SA 3.0. Creating the reservoir meant relocating several villages whose land now lies beneath the surface. Researchers have returned to the area again and again over the decades since, studying what resettlement did to the families who were moved, including in surveys conducted in the lat...

Read more: Sélingué Dam on Qualla

Image: Carport | CC BY-SA 3.0

]]> Sun, 14 Jun 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/e/f/4/4/selingue-dam-wp/ef44-s-lingu-dam-what-the-water-covered.mp3 0:06 4 full Sélingué Dam: Power for the Plains https://qualla.com/selingue-dam/ Photo credit Carport, CC BY-SA 3.0. Sélingué generates 44 megawatts and produces around 200 million kilowatt-hours of electricity each year, making it one of Mali's most important power sources, surpassed only by the larger Manantali Dam on the Bafing River. Its current threads out to a constellation of towns acros...

Read more: Sélingué Dam on Qualla

Image: Carport | CC BY-SA 3.0

]]> Sun, 14 Jun 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/e/f/4/4/selingue-dam-wp/ef44-s-lingu-dam-power-for-the-plains.mp3 0:06 5 full