The Three Gorges Project on the Yangtze River in China

Despite global concern about the desirability of building mega-dams, the big dam ideology is still alive and well in China. On 1 June 2003 the reservoir for the Three Gorges project on the Yangtze River, the largest water conservancy project in the world, should have started to fill and the scheme is scheduled to be fully operational by 2009. The potential of the site was noted in the early 1920s, and although conditional approval was given by the Chinese govemment in the late 1950s (Mao was a keen advocate of the project), it took more than 30 years/or the project to come to fruition. During a protracted planning phase the Chinese leaders received conflicting advice from different government bureaucracies.The development of the project bas been fiercely contested both inside and outside China. As far as its critics are concerned it is a social and environmental disaster in the making, with the threat of siltation, increased pollution, irrevocable damage to the scenery of the Three Gorges, further threats to many endangered species, some already facing extinction, and the loss of valuable cultural antiquities and historical sites. Tbe enforced resettlement of nearly 1.5 million people is already proving to be a problem,. Its proponents are equally adamant that it will bring major advantages to the middle and lower Yangtze Valley, notably the removal of the threat of flooding, cheap renewable energy, improved navigation, improved water supply and the transfer of water to North China. The issues are complex and this article seeks to investigate some of the contesting claims of the protagonists.