Bui Dam
The Bui Dam is a hydroelectric project in Ghana. It is built on the Black Volta river at the Bui Gorge, at the southern end of Bui National Park. The project was a collaboration between the government of Ghana and Sino Hydro, a Chinese construction company. Construction on the main dam began in December 2009. Its first generator was commissioned on 3 May 2013, and the dam was inaugurated in December of the same year. Bui is the second largest hydroelectric generating plant in the country after the Akosombo Dam. The reservoir flooded about 20% of the Bui National Park and impacted the habitats for the rare black hippopotamus as well as a large number of wildlife species. It required the resettlement of 1,216 people, and affected many more. History The Bui hydro-electric dam had first been envisaged in 1925 by the British-Australian geologist and naturalist Albert Ernest Kitson when he visited the Bui Gorge. The dam had been on the drawing board since the 1960s, when Ghana's largest dam, the Akosombo Dam, was built further downstream on the Volta River. By 1978 planning for the Bui Dam was advanced with support from Australia and the World Bank. However, four