Reservoir

A reservoir (/ˈrɛzərvwɑːr/; from French réservoir [ʁezɛʁvwaʁ]) is an enlarged lake behind a dam. Such a dam may be either artificial, usually built to store fresh water, or it may be a natural formation.

This article is about an artificial body of water or a natural lake. For other uses, see Reservoir (disambiguation).
For other types of man-made water bodies, see artificial lake.

Reservoirs can be created in a number of ways, including controlling a watercourse that drains an existing body of water, interrupting a watercourse to form an embayment within it, excavating, or building any number of retaining walls or levees.

The term is also used informally to refer to any liquid storage, like the "coolant reservoir" in an automobile engine.

This article is issued from Wikipedia. The text is licensed under Creative Commons - Attribution - Sharealike. Additional terms may apply for the media files.