the impact and doubt about three gorges dam
Dam is said to be built for controlling flood, but there is flood every year in summer
These are the lists of Wikipedia pages for China’s flood.
Due to the geology and weather factors, flood is always a problem in China.
2020 China Floods
2017 China Floods
2016 China Floods
2013 Southwest China Floods
2011 China Floods
2010 China Floods
2008 South China Floods
2007 South Asian Floods
The three gorges dam project is done by 2004. When construction began in 1994, it was designed not only to generate electricity to propel China’s breakneck economic growth, but also to tame China’s longest river, shield millions of people from fatal floods. However, comparing to the frequency of flood in the past, it seems that there is more flood these years. The three gorges dam can do little to the flood.
There is also an issue about people’s disappointment on the three gorges dam.
The historical reports on three gorges dam are listed here, which is funny to compare.
On June 1, 2003, “The Three Gorges Dam is solid and can withstand floods once in 10,000 years.”
On May 8, 2007, “The Three Gorges Dam can prevent floods in 1000 years starting this year.”
On October 21, 2008, “The Three Gorges Dam can withstand the once-in-100-year flood”
July 20, 2010, “Yangtze River Water Conservancy Commission: Can’t Put Hope on the Three Gorges Dam”
How dam is supposed to control flood?
Dams are an important part of flood protection for any city. They protect against the potential loss of life and property that can be caused by flooding. Dams protect against flooding by collecting and holding waters when they reach a certain level. Once collected, a dam might be designed to release the water back into the river at a controlled speed or divert the water elsewhere for other uses. quoted from here
What is sacrificed for three gorges dam
displaced some 1.3 million people
Some artworks related to its effect Jorge Manes Rubio Chen Qiulin, Yun-Fei Ji, Liu Xiaodong, and Zhuang Hui “Whenever it rains, the soil starts flooding downhill,” Mr. Li said. “The problem is getting more and more serious in recent years.”
This summer, a tremor shook Pinggao like jelly, leaving cracks in several farmhouses. When rainfall is heavy, Mr. Li said his house swayed so much “you can hear the tiles cracking on the roof.”
He said, “Villagers are getting very worried.”
In the isolated mountain villages above the reservoir, farmers have heard nothing about a new resettlement plan. For many farmers, the immediate concern is the land beneath their feet. Landslides are striking different hillsides as the rising water places more pressure on the shoreline, local officials say. In Fengjie County, officials have designated more than 800 disaster-prone areas. Since 2004, landslides have forced the relocation of more than 13,000 people in the county. Not too far from the dam itself, residents in the tiny village of Miaohe felt a major tremor in April beneath their farmhouses. Officials ordered them to relocate for three months into a mountain tunnel for lack of any other nighttime shelter. “It rained the whole month,” said Han Yun, 43, a woman working in the fields. “It leaked the whole time. During the night, while we were sleeping, trucks were passing through the other side of the tunnel. Every part of my bones was aching.”
the dam flooded 1000 archaeological and cultural sites
The Three Gorges region is the birthplace of Chinese civilization, but archaeology in the region has traced human habitation of the gorges back to the Paleolithic. In preparation for it to be submerged, over 1000 Chinese archaeologists descended on the region to do what preservation could be done in this culturally rich region before the water covered everything.
Looting, too, has been an enormous problem for the archaeological record as both professional scavengers and local farmers descended on sites throughout the gorge. Many of the sites found in the region were left without surveillance before they were able to be excavated or were submerged.
not exactly the same picture but what a spiritual tree would look like Here is the report about this issue: Stolen China ‘Spirit Tree’ from three gorges sold in New York
The environmental effect for all dams
Dams prevent fish migration.
Large dams have led to the extinction of many fish and other aquatic species, the disappearance of birds in floodplains, huge losses of forest, wetland and farmland, erosion of coastal deltas, and many other unmitigable impacts.
Other random information
In 2005, NASA scientists calculated that the shift of water mass stored by the dams would increase the total length of the Earth’s day by 0.06 microseconds and make the Earth slightly more round in the middle and flat on the poles.[100] from wikipedia