Dam construction is one of the major civil engineering activities, which enhancerndevelopment. If the construction of such infrastructures can be achieved within soundrntechnical and affordable financial capacity, then it is possible to realize the dream forrndevelopment and well-to-do life.rnOne of the merits of earth fill dams is that they can be constructed from locally availablernnatural material (soil) within sound technical and affordable financial capacity. For soils ofrna given locality to be used safely and economically, appropriate methods of determiningrnthe geotechnical properties and shear strength parameters have to be investigated andrndeveloped. In addition to this, the appropriate methods of compacting locally availablerntropical soils have to be developed.rnAccordingly, in this paper the influence of compaction on the stability of small earth fillrndams of local tropical soils has been investigated. In addition to this, some peculiarrngeotechnical and geo-chemical characteristics of local tropical soils that have been used inrnconstruction of earth fill dams have been studied. Accordingly, the fill material of therncofferdam of Gilgel Gibe Hydroelectric Project has been obtained to be true laterite, whilernthe core material of Dire Dam and the red clay soil of Addis Ababa (Semen Gebeya Area)rnhave been obtained to be lateritic.rnThe soil samples were compacted at optimum moisture content, at drier of the optimumrnmoisture content and at wetter of the optimum moisture contents. Then, triaxial tests wererndone on the soil samples to investigate the variation in shear strength properties of thesernsoils, which ultimately affect the stability of the earth fill dams. Compaction moisture hasrnbeen obtained to influence the stability of earth fill dams. Samples compacted on the drierrnside of optimum moistures registered high shear strengths. But these strengths werernobserved to be lost upon further increasing the compaction moisture and also upon samplernsaturation.rnVariation of permeability of compacted soils with respect to compaction moistures andrnalso the effect of saturation settlements were investigated. Accordingly, Permeability hasrnbeen obtained to decrease towards the optimum moisture content. On the drier and wetterrnsides of the optimum, higher values of coefficients of permeability have been obtained.rnvi The problem of saturation settlement has been observed to occur when the soil isrncompacted on the drier side of the optimum moisture.