Three Gorges Dam: I'm Glad I Don't Live Downstream

"On Chinese Water Project,
A Struggle Over Sound Science"
Yale Environment 360 (January 8, 2009)

"In January 2007, an independent geologist named Yong Yang set out from his home in China’s western Sichuan Province with a small team of researchers packed into two SUVs to find the unmarked place on the Tibetan plateau from which the Yangtze River springs. They drove over 16,000 miles through China's still-wild western frontier – vast hinterlands where no roads cross, with mountainous terrain known only to local herders, antelope and wolves...."

The article takes its time, but does discuss an unofficial view of China's Three Gorges Dam, and the enormous project that hunk of concrete is a key part of.

My hat's off to the Yale publication, for noting that

"...The Chinese government has in the past unleashed disastrous plans with the best of intentions. Mao Zedong's Great Leap Forward, for instance, set targets for enhanced steel and grain production based on fantasy, rather than science. Unable to meet unrealistic goals, local cadres felt compelled to fudge performance numbers, ensuring that inaccurate data and corruption would doom the effort. More recently, the government's Three Gorges Dam hydropower project – an attempt to address the country's rapidly growing energy needs that was completed this fall – has run into trouble. Even government officials acknowledged, after the fact, that faulty geological planning...."

It Seemed Like Such a Good Idea at the Time

There seem to be real environmental concerns about China's big project. What doesn't seem to get much press is the fault line that runs nearby.

China may be lucky, and do something about the dam before tectonic forces do the job for them. For the sake of people living downstream, I hope that China's leaders get smart. Otherwise, sooner or later, 39 cubic kilometers of water flushing down the Yangtze River Valley will make an earthquake's damage seem trivial.

On the other hand, the current leadership of China does seem to have learned some lessons from history: particularly from the Yellow River's (or Huang He or 黃河 or 黄河 or whatever) 26 course changes. Beijing is hundreds of miles north of the Yangtze.

More, at

• "Three Gorges Dam: The TVA on The Yangtze River"
  Schiller Institute
• "The Three Gorges Dam
  Cornell (pdf format)
• "The Grand Canal and the Three Gorges Dam: A Historical Comparison
  American University (June 1998)