Three Gorges Dam

Three Gorges Dam under construction (www.stevenbensonphoto.com)

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The Three Gorges Dam is the world’s largest hydropower project and most notorious dam. The massive project sets records for number of people displaced (more than 1.2 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. The weight of the reservoir's water has many scientists concerned over reservoir-induced seismicity. Since 2007, Chinese scientists and government officials have become increasingly concerned about the environmental and social impacts of the project.

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.

Governments and companies from around the world have helped fund and build the Three Gorges Dam. Yet through this project, China has acquired the know-how to build large hydropower schemes, and is now exporting similar projects around the world.

While Three Gorges is the world’s biggest hydro project, 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.

International Rivers protects rivers and defends the rights of the communities which depend on them. We monitor the social and environmental problems of the Three Gorges Dam, and work to ensure that the right lessons are drawn for energy and water projects in China and around the world.

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

More information:

Read the latest on the problem of Reservoir-Induced Seismicity (or RIS) in China and worldwide.
Read International Rivers' factsheet on the current status of the Three Gorges Dam.
See a New York Times video about the plight of those displaced by Three Gorges Dam.
Read a New York Times article about the social and environmental problems with the Three Gorges Dam.
See the feature film Up the Yangtze, about one family impacted by the Three Gorges Dam.
Read a Science news article on the environmental challenges to the Three Gorges Dam.