Three Gorges Dam

The Three Gorges Dam is the world’s most notorious dam. The massive project sets records for number of people displaced (at least 1.3 million), number of cities and towns flooded (13 cities, 140 towns, 1,350 villages), and length of reservoir (more than 600 kilometers). The project has been plagued by corruption, spiraling costs, technological problems, human rights violations and resettlement difficulties.

The environmental impacts of the project are profound, and are likely to get worse as time goes on. The submergence of hundreds of factories, mines and waste dumps, and the presence of massive industrial centers upstream are creating a festering bog of effluent, silt, industrial pollutants and rubbish in the reservoir. Erosion of the reservoir and downstream riverbanks is causing landslides, and threatening one of the world’s biggest fisheries in the East China Sea. Scientists estimate that annual catches may be reduced by one million tons due to the decline in fresh water and sediment reaching the sea.

The Three Gorges Dam is a model for disaster, yet the Chinese government is replicating this model both domestically and internationally. Within China, huge hydropower cascades have been proposed and are being constructed in some of China’s most pristine and biologically and culturally diverse river basins - the Lancang (Upper Mekong) River, Nu (Salween) River and upstream of Three Gorges Dam on the Yangtze River and tributaries. Internationally, Chinese banks and companies are involved in constructing dozens of large dams, particularly in Africa and Southeast Asia.

While Three Gorges is the world’s biggest dam, the problems at Three Gorges are not unique. Around the world, large dams are causing social and environmental devastation while better alternatives are being ignored.

Learn more about the problems with large dams and the global movement to protect rivers and rights.

LATEST ADDITIONS:

Three Gorges Dam: The Cost of Power

China's Three Gorges Dam: A Flood of Controversy Trailer

Patrick McCully in China's Three Gorges Dam Documentary

Last Descent of the Great Bend of the Yangtze - Part I

Chinese Dam Projects Criticized for Their Human Cost

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Aviva Imhof
aviva [at] internationalrivers [dot] org
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