Cardiff Bay Barrage lies across the mouth of Cardiff Bay, Wales between Queen Alexandra Dock and Penarth Head. It was one of the largest civil engineering projects in Europe during construction in the 1990s.
Bascule Bridges
The mudflats exposed at low tide, before the construction of the barrage
Low-key inauguration ceremony of Cardiff Bay Barrage November 1999
The fish pass on the barrage
Cardiff Bay is an area and freshwater lake in Cardiff, Wales. The site of a former tidal bay and estuary, it is the river mouth of the River Taff and Ely. The body of water was converted into a 500-acre (2.0 km2) lake as part of a UK Government redevelopment project, involving the damming of the rivers by the Cardiff Bay Barrage in 1999. The barrage impounds the rivers from the Severn Estuary, providing flood defence and the creation of a permanent non-tidal high water lake with limited access to the sea, serving as a core feature of the redevelopment of the area in the 1990s.
Cardiff Bay in 2020, Pierhead Building (left), Senedd building (right), and Millennium Centre (behind).
Cardiff Bay before the construction of the Cardiff Bay Barrage
Cardiff Bay in 2008
Pierhead Building (left) and the Senedd building (right)