Dahla Dam

The Dahla Dam, also known as Arghandab Dam and Kasa, is located in the Shah Wali Kot District of Kandahar Province in Afghanistan, approximately 40 km (25 mi) northeast of the provincial capital Kandahar. Its name derives from Dahla, which is the historical name of the area where the dam was built. It is the second largest dam in Afghanistan after the Kajaki Dam in neighboring Helmand Province. In 2019, the Afghan government planned to spend $450 million in upgrading the dam. The project includes raising the dam's walls by around 13 meters so the reservoir could hold nearly a billion cubic meters of fresh water and installing three turbines to produce 22 megawatts (MW) of electricity.

The Dahla Dam was built in 1952 on the Arghandab River, which flows over a length of 250 mi (400 km). Over the decades its reservoir was subject to siltation, and its canal system reduced irrigation benefits. This necessitated undertaking rehabilitation of the dam which involved desiltation works and pertinent components of the project to improve the water delivery system; this component was completed during March 2012 with assistance provided by Canada. The second phase involved raising the height of the dam and the relevant dykes to compensate for the loss of storage in its reservoir due to siltation, and to achieve the full benefits of irrigation for which the dam was originally built.