China: The Three Gorges Dam Hydroelectric Project
| Geolocation: | 30° 45' 7.9416", 111° 16' 1.92" |
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Contents
Summary
The Yangtze River is the largest river in China. It is also the third largest river in the world, after the Nile and the Amazon, flowing for 6,300 kilometers (3,915 miles), about twice the length of the US-Mexico border. The Three Gorges Dam (TGD) is an ambitious hydro-industrial complex consisting of a 2,309-meter-long, 185-meter-high dam, a five-tier ship lock, and 32 hydropower turbo-generators that aims to generate a total electric capacity of 22,500 MW to reduce China’s dependency on coal-fired generation at the same time it provides a clean source of energy. The project was intended to contribute to flood reduction and flood control in the Yangtze River banks, facilitate navigation upstream and stimulate tourism and trade in the region.
Despite its tremendous hydropower potential, experts assert that the TGD will not be able to operate at full capacity. In the end, the hydropower solution has proven to be not as efficient as the Chinese authorities expected. Operationally it would require 175 meters depth in the dam, but in order to guarantee flood control, the water level of the dam will have to be reduced to 145 meters before each flood season to provide up to 22.1 billion m3 of flood control capacity. Increased water levels for navigation and sediment formation problems have prevented the TGD and other dams in China (such as the Sanmexia Dam) to operate at full capacity. It is estimated that 140 towns, 326 townships and more than 1,500 villages belonging to 18 different counties were partially or completely flooded after the TGD completion. The inundated area covered about 1,282 cultural heritage places. In 2007, the Chinese government announced that “at least 4 million people in the area were to be relocated to cities in the next 10 to 15 years” independent estimates show this figure could go up to a total of 6 million people to be resettled due to the dam construction or its environmental impacts.
Due to the problems and consequences mentioned above, some specialists point out that the TGD is likely to reduce its estimated proportion of hydropower energy generation by the year 2020 from a previously estimated 40% further down to 26% in order to remedy of the situation at hand.
Natural, Historic, Economic, Regional, and Political Framework
The Three Gorges Dam (TGD) project was long coveted by the Chinese government. The first intention to build the dam was expressed by Sun Yat-sen in 1919. In 1954 severe flooding along the river left 30,000 people dead and one million people homeless. Mao Zedong backed the project to address the constant threat of flooding an ambition he also expressed in one of his most famous poems “Swimming” (1956) revealing his intentions to build the dam. Dams were considered a landmark of development embraced by the highest level government officials and personally endorsed by Premier Li Peng , being himself a hydroelectric engineer.
The Three Gorges Dam (TGD) project was long coveted by the Chinese government. The first intention to build the dam was expressed by Sun Yat-sen in 1919. In 1954 severe flooding along the river left 30,000 people dead and one million people homeless. Mao Zedong backed the project to address the constant threat of flooding an ambition he also expressed in one of his most famous poems “Swimming” (1956) revealing his intentions to build the dam. Dams were considered a landmark of development embraced by the highest level government officials and personally endorsed by Premier Li Peng , being himself a hydroelectric engineer.
A Closed decision-making process
Premier Li Peng advocated for the construction of the dam, influenced by a nationalistic vision of modernization, arguing the project would allow flood control and would provide a readily available alternative energy source for power generation. He was supported by a pro-dam faction in the National People’s Congress (NPC) led by Qian Zhengying, the Minister of Water Resources and Electrical Power. Deliberations in Congress were driven by technically illiterate supporters providing unrealistic budgetary figures that seriously underestimated true costs and ignored potential dangers while exaggerating benefits. To illustrate this fact, while deliberating on the construction of the TGD, among the panel of 412 experts involved in the dam approval there was not any sociologist, cultural anthropologist or archaeologist to discuss the assessment of the cultural heritage affected by the reservoir impoundment.
The decision was broadly based on projected benefits: (1) Energy generation.- Hydropower was regarded as the ultimate solution to China’s dependency to coal and transition from coal-burning power-plants to hydropower was aimed to reduce greenhouse emissions and satisfy growing demand of energy; (2) Security.- To achieve flood reduction and flood control; (3) Trade.- Increased water depth would benefit upstream navigation to about 80% of China’s total navigable cargo.
After more than 70 years of debate the project was approved in 1992. The vote by the 2,600 legislators generated 177 nays and 644 abstentions, an unprecedented demonstration of opposition to a project for which the government had lobbied heavily. Opposition emphasized growing concerns on technical issues and scientific uncertainty on the expected outcomes, as a project of this scope was never put in place before.
Issues and Stakeholders
Unpredictability, limited knowledge and knowledge representation (models), and lack of information (data)
NSPD: Water Quantity, Water Quality, Ecosystems
Stakeholder Types: Federated state/territorial/provincial government, Sovereign state/national/federal government
Environmental Uncertainty
Past experience in China shows that unpredictable climatological events cannot be foreseen, but measures could have been taken to manage catastrophic events in a better way. In 1975 a devastating typhoon (a phenomenon expected once every 100 years) hit Henan province causing the water level of existing dams to exceed the spillway capacity overflowing and destroying its structure. At that time, the dam at the Banqiao Reservoir already exceeded its capacity (originally designed with a capacity of 492 million cubic meters, but had to accommodate more than 697 million cubic meters of floods) and after the typhoon stroke it collapsed. Downstream dikes and flood diversion projects could not resist such a deluge provoking a chain reaction that crumbled 62 dams overnight. This tragedy caused an estimated 85,000 people to die. Two million more were trapped for weeks, and some 11 million were stricken by disease and famine in the aftermath. This experience showed the vulnerability to unforeseen events such as Typhoons and the impact they have on water and dam management in terms of the lack of appropriate management with an early warning system or a widely publicized evacuation plan that contributes to save thousands of lives in the event of unavoidable unpredictability.
Seismic Risk
Seismological analysis of the reservoir reveal the TGD is situated over an active fault line and the weight of the water could trigger an earthquake that could demolish the dam. Also, fluctuating water levels could cause instability on the riverbanks resulting in landslides and tidal waves. Advocates of the TGD claim that it is designed to withstand any seismic shock and that most of the Yangtze shoreline is solid rock.
A 2010 study by seismologists at the China Earthquake Administration confirmed that the TGD has significantly increased seismic activity along the dam’s reservoir. Seismic monitors in Hubei Province registered 3,429 earthquakes between June 2003 (when inundation of the reservoir began) and December 2009. Some specialists suggest that the shifting weight of the reservoir may have triggered the May 2008 quake in Sichuan Province, in which least 87,000 people died.
The Flood - Sedimentation - Power Generation Paradox
Historical records show that floods occurred in the Yangtze at about one per decade. In order to play its claimed role in flood control, the water level of the TGD will have to be reduced to 145 meters before each flood season to provide up to 22.1 billion m3 of flood control capacity. Full capacity electric power generation would require 175 meters depth. The Chinese government was confident that keeping this level will guarantee flood control in the region, but evidence from similar projects has shown the opposite (Sanmenxia Dam).
To remove sediment from the TGD, the reservoir level has to be lowered to 145 meters during the flood season (from May to September), when the water carries most of its sediment load; this would allow to remove the silt through sluice gates and bottom outlets. Then from October to April (dry season), the reservoir level will be raised again to 175 m. But, in the event of heavy rains upstream the dam during the wet season, discharge gates should be closed to prevent floods downstream. But this will cause the build-up of large amount of silt behind the dam which will paradoxically cause the floods it aims to prevent downstream. As heavy rain and typhoons are extremely difficult to predict, there is general agreement among specialists that the TGD will not provide the effective control for the floods envisioned by the Chinese Government.
Increasing the depth of the reservoir for upstream navigation and full capacity electric generation of 22,500 megawatts at 175 m. will contribute to the buildup of sediment, causing the dam to lose flood control capability (as silt is drained from the dam during the rainy season). On the other hand, to keep the water level at 145m will hinder navigation upstream (due to lower water level), and will increase the amount of land that must be flooded.Water Contamination and Toxic Waste
NSPD: Water Quality, Ecosystems
Stakeholder Types: Federated state/territorial/provincial government, Sovereign state/national/federal government, Local Government, Environmental interest, Community or organized citizens
The filling of the reservoir to 175 meters flooded more than 1,300 factories and mines, including about 4,000 hospitals, around 40,000 graveyards, and about 200 garbage dumping sites, with the subsequent migration of toxics including arsenic, sulfides, cyanides and mercury from these sources to the reservoir water. Not only industrial and domestic pollutants may hazard the aquatic biodiversity; but also the massive use of fertilizers by farmers causes the release of nitrates and phosphates into the dam. These calculations were seriously overlooked ex-ante and had a huge impact ex-post in the contamination of the Yangtze River basin.
Chinese Government - President of China - Premier State Council - Vice President - Communist Party of China - National People’s Congress (NPC) - Ministry of Water Resources - Yangtze Valley Planning Office - The Three Gorges Corporation - China Development Bank - Provinces and municipalities local governments.
NGO’s and Civil Society - International Rivers - Mountainous Disaster and Environment Institute in Chengdu - Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS)
- Research Institute for Protection of the Yangtze Water ResourcesResettlement - cultural and archaeological loss - agricultural and livelyhood changes
NSPD: Ecosystems, Governance, Assets, Values and Norms
Stakeholder Types: Federated state/territorial/provincial government, Sovereign state/national/federal government, Local Government, Development/humanitarian interest, Environmental interest, Community or organized citizens, Cultural Interest
The Chinese Government originally estimated only 725,000 people to resettle, a deliberate underestimation to help the project’s approval. In 1992, the authorities announced the total figure of resettlement was from 846,200 up to 1.2 million people in 2009. Independent sources raised this figure to 2 million and even more. Ultimately, more than 100 towns were submerged. Fourteen thousand hectares of agricultural land were expected to be submerged, as were more than 100 archeological sites, some dating back over 12,000 years. In late 2007, government announced that “at least 4 million people from the Three Gorges Reservoir area are to be relocated to cities in the next 10 to 15 years” It now appears possible that as many as 6 million people in total will have to be resettled because of the dam and surrounding impacts.
About 43% of the people relocated are peasants who were to be compensated with new land to be farmed, but most of the land in the reservoir region is not able to be farmed because of its steeper slopes with very thin soils, which have been proved to be less fertile and unproductive, so there is not enough land to distribute.
Chinese Government - President of China - Premier State Council - Vice President - Communist Party of China - National People’s Congress (NPC) - Ministry of Water Resources - Yangtze Valley Planning Office - The Three Gorges Corporation - Provinces and municipalities local governments.
NGO’s and Civil Society - International Rivers
- Human Rights Watch Asia
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Key Questions
This project effected a range of actors who were not consulted or otherwise included in the decision making process . However, their activism related to the project outcomes has contributed to promote inclusion, to some extent. Also, technical expertise from the local scientific community and international best practices has contributed to tackle the immediate consequences of the TGD. The following paragraphs describe their activities and their struggle for a comprehensive solution to the problems posed by the TGD.
Public Demonstrations and Protest – In general public opinion was excluded and never consulted about the project, particularly those affected for flooding and resettlement. In May 1992, the police arrested 179 members of the Democratic Youth Party and charged them with counterrevolutionary activities for sabotaging the progress of the TGD. To this day, their whereabouts are still unknown. Human Rights Watch Asia has condemned repression from the State and appealed to foreign governments and corporations to assist in discovering the fate of the dissenters.
Scientific and Expert opinion – Critics in China from scientific, engineering and environmental backgrounds who have attempted to raise technical questions about the project have been accused of counterrevolutionary intent and disloyalty. Opponents have been persecuted since 1956. Criticism of the dam is strictly forbidden. Books which contain such debates are banned. Experts and journalists who attempted such discussions were harassed, even jailed. Li Rui, Mao’s personal secretary and vice minister of water resources was the first to be purged during the Great Leap Forward. Years later, in 1989 a journalist Dai Quing, published the book Yangtze! Yangtze! a collection of articles by several scholars against the dam. After the Tiananmen debacle her book was officially banned and 30,000 copies were destroyed. The authors were accused of provoking chaos and riots. Dai was imprisoned for 10 months. The eminent scientist Qian Jiaju, who openly criticized the project, was forced into exile. The controversy over the dam, which began out of genuine concern over the environmental dangers and future economic health of China, turned into political fight.
Congress Representatives – Some have been prevented from expressing their opinions at meetings with the main government body planning the project. They have accused pro-dam Communist Party officials for employing unscientific methods and indulging impossible plans in their ambitions to build the world’s biggest dam. Censorship and lack of open discussion increased uncertainty concerns and diminished trust on government decisions preventing mutual gains for the entire society. Anti-dam lobbyists believed that public access to basic information about the dam would have helped to prevent flood disasters.
Research Institutions – Among other valuable attempts to implement follow-up efforts to obtain reliable information are those pursued by ecologist Chen Guojie and his colleagues at the Mountainous Disaster and Environment Institute in Chengdu and the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS) setting up seven experiment stations, one of them located at Wanxian, an area where some 800,000 residents are being relocated. The team monitored environmental changes during construction of the reservoir as well as the fate of the residents. Those stations feed into a broader network of several hundred scientists in 70 institutions who are part of a $110 million project to monitor a dozen aspects of the project’s impact. Such initiatives remained isolated from mainstream politics and management of the TGD and just gained notoriety in the last decade with government shifting leadership and enhanced professionalization of Chinese public service.
Government officials and bureaucracy – Lack of accountability from local, provincial, and central government prompts collaboration failure. Corruption and absence of transparency mechanisms hinder adaptive management and effective rapport from impacted populations and government authorities. In early 2000 the Chinese government released information that corrupt officials had embezzled $60 million (500 million yuan) from resettlement funds for the TGD. An official was sentenced to death for embezzling almost $1.5 million from the project.
The consequences of the TGD will continue to have significant impact in China and other countries (pollution and acid rain spreading towards South Korea and Japan). More actors (foreign and local) are involved to find solutions to their problems and make their claims be addressed. In terms of the decision making process some specialists argue that this has been a symbolic depiction of the power struggle between reformist and hardliners inside Chinese politics . It has been an ongoing process, even after the dam completion and it will continue until adequate solutions are accomplished.
Chinese Authorities are hard bargainers and typically withhold information, keep secrecy around negotiations and favor a close decision-making process, but there are areas of opportunity in the enormous environmental problems China is facing nowadays, as a result of its rapid economic growth, mainly air pollution, land degradation, and water contamination. These pressing issues pose tremendous challenges for China’s continued economic development, political stability, public health and sustainability.
In its early stages, the TGD sought for participation and involvement of Multilateral Financial Institutions such as the World Bank and the Asian Development Bank. Export Credit Agencies such as the US Export-Import Bank and other investment banks and corporations were invited. However, the Chinese government refused to comply with the World Bank standards in environmental and social policy issues (particularly resettlement), so the World Bank refused to finance the project. This made potential investors to hesitate about the viability of the project, and increased their uncertainty with the way the Chinese government would be dealing with problems related to technical and management issues, both for water management and power generation. Other agencies like the US Ex-Im Bank walked out the negotiations. But Chinese ambitions were not to be discouraged since growing export reserves and a booming economy allowed the government to finance the project through China’s Development Banks.
In past decades, the World Bank used to be a big advocate of hydropower generation, and promoted investments for their construction as a solution to air contamination and reduced CO2 emissions, but perceptions of dams and dam building have changed. Dams today symbolize, for some critics, not progress but environmental and social devastation. In the year 2000, the World Bank sponsored a World Commission on Dams study entitled Dams and Development: A New Framework for Decision-Making. It was the first comprehensive global and independent review of the performance and associated impact of large dams. The document summarized most of the mea culpa, pinpointing the flaws, omissions and errors undertaken by large dam projects.
As the TGD project continued, international media began to report on growing threats from landslides, pollution, flooding, as well as growing social and political unrest and dissatisfaction with relocating millions of people. Foreign public opinion and China’s international prestige play a significant role in the international scene, since Chinese foreign policy aims to lead the causes of the developing world. On that note, International Regimes have induced China to join multilateral efforts such as the United Nations Conference on Environment and Development (UNCED), the “Earth Summit”. As a result China incorporated some sustainable development policies in its Ninth Five-Year Plan (1996-2000), and the Fifteenth Chinese Communist Party Congress (1997).
Multilateral negotiation forums typically offer mutual gain solutions with financial resources, technology transfer and important capacity-building (ex. Global Environment Facility) to entice participants and provide incentives to developing countries willing to address these problems. International negotiations have contributed to some remarkable adjustments on China’s policies and actions in this issue area towards sustainability. International environmental agreements can effectively exercise some influence in public policy, providing guidance for reform and strengthening the underlying capacity of the agencies and actors involved.
Furthermore, Chinese investments have been actively supporting numerous infrastructure projects in Africa, and increasing demands and critiques on Chinese practices in environmental issues have forced Chinese authorities to establish new domestic institutions and processes for managing those issues. These new institutions and processes favored environmental standards within China. For example, in 1995 the Air pollution Prevention and Control Law (first promulgated in 1987), was amended to include tougher regulations for controlling sulfur dioxide.
International Non-Governmental Organizations such as International Rivers, WIN, M-Power, WWF, etc. also contribute to knowledge sharing and actively push for greater transparency and accountability on behalf of affected minorities and vulnerable groups, to advance their agenda on broader environmental concerns and other uncertainty related issues.
The energy infrastructure sector is increasingly being opened up to private investors, few of whom have proved willing to invest in a project that carries high risks and low returns. Financial institutions have embraced international standards such as the Equator principles, a benchmark developed by the financial industry to judge, evaluate and manage risk in project financing, including social and environmental impact for investment projects to perfect financial risk evaluation and early warning mechanisms.
These efforts combined with international regimes and international organizations such as United Nations Environmental Program – UNEP that promotes environmental standards and best practices. The International Hydropower Association's (IHA) launched in 2011 the industry's Hydropower Sustainability Assessment Protocol (HSAP) that enables dam builders to assess various sustainability topics, including biodiversity, erosion, infrastructure safety and downstream flow regimes. The protocol also includes guidelines on engaging with indigenous peoples and identifies the potential for reservoirs to produce greenhouse gas emissions.
The magnitude of the consequences of this controversial project has raised international concerns over appropriate water management and sustainability. All the initiatives discussed above emphasize mutual gains negotiations, joint fact finding, technical expertise, inclusion, transparency and collaborative adaptive management that are gradually improving governance in dam construction and water management in China.
Location: Described as:
- Hydropower
Project Dates:1994- 2009
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