For the first time, a comprehensive list of cascade dams in Sichuan Province shows the jaw-dropping extent to which one of China’s most hydropowered regions is being developed, proving the Xi Jinping regime is hell-bent on damming the nation’s rivers no matter the risk to regions prone to high seismicity. Compiled by Chinese geologist Fan Xiao.

Summary by Probe International

Over the decades, Probe International has established a catalogue of reports and analysis on China’s development of mega dams and the CCP’s plans to roll out a series of controversial hydro projects, unprecedented in scope and negative potential. Along the way, we have championed critical research into the relationship between large dams and reservoir-induced seismicity (RIS) — earthquake activity that occurs in a dam reservoir area and surrounding region after impoundment.

This focus has culminated in groundbreaking work by Chinese academics and industry insiders whose invaluable findings would not otherwise be circulated, such as geologist John Jackson’s “Earthquake Hazards and Large Dams in Western China.” A pseudonym for reasons of safety, John Jackson’s 2012 report cross-referenced dam locations in western China (either already built, under construction or proposed) with maps of seismic hazard. He found that of these, only 1.4% were located in zones of low seismic hazard, the rest involved zones of high to very high seismic hazard. Given the rapid rate of development envisioned, he argued the potential for disaster had entered catastrophic territory.

Another high-profile Chinese geologist, Fan Xiao, has contributed a wealth of material to Probe’s catalogue on the impacts of mega-dams and the phenomenon of RIS. Fan Xiao is well known for his study of a 2008 earthquake that claimed 80,000 lives in Wenchuan, Sichuan. Fan argued that the event was likely triggered by the construction and operation of the Zipingpu Dam on Sichuan’s Min River near the city of Dujiangyan.

In 2013, China’s leadership unveiled an energy development strategy that called for the renewal of dam construction on the Yarlung Zangbo, Nu (Salween) and Lancang (Mekong), all major rivers flowing from the Tibetan Plateau. An undertaking that would include dam cascades on the Jinsha, Lancang, Yalong and Nu rivers in the country’s southwest, located in the Himalayan earthquake region (the world’s most active tectonic zone). Construction proposed for this region is especially vulnerable to the dangers of RIS as well as naturally occurring earthquakes. This danger is taken into account, say engineers, but the maps of earthquake risk they rely on are based on historical earthquake and seismic information mired by inaccuracies in earthquake monitoring (as well as the lack thereof). They do not provide the depth of clarity needed for what John Jackson describes as “an extraordinarily risky experiment”. In fact, research into RIS in China only began in 1963.

Jackson warned that plans already underway or under consideration posed the potential for a deadly domino effect: a scenario involving the collapse of cascade dams in high seismic hazard zones where construction is particularly vulnerable to natural seismic activity and an increase in seismicity due to RIS. The collapse or failure of one dam could culminate in a tsunami directly transmitted to the next dam downstream, and so on.

Fan Xiao, in particular, has dedicated years to tracking dam development in southwestern and western China (where the provinces of Sichuan and Yunnan are the country’s most dammed, or will be). Now, for the first time ever, Fan has compiled a list of all of the dams built or under construction on Sichuan’s major rivers. In total, Fan has mapped 215 dams, all of them cascade systems across nine rivers that flow from Sichuan to the Yangtze, some through the provinces of Qinghai and Yunnan, as well as through Tiger Leaping Gorge.

Beyond the jaw-dropping extent of this development, Fan Xiao’s comprehensive list proves that China’s leadership is hell-bent on damming the nation’s rivers. Fan’s warnings and those of John Jackson, and the many others who have contributed to our project on China’s mega dams, are prescient in their concern: this development is out of control.

A report by Fan Xiao only last month on another of China’s pet projects, a proposed super dam on the Great Bend of the Yarlung Tsangpo in occupied Tibet near its border with India, noted there isn’t even a need for it. The super dam, the world’s largest if built, could not be justified as a climate change project to reduce carbon emissions and demand did not exist “in terms of Tibet’s own energy needs”. In reality, hydropower stations in China’s Sichuan and Yunnan provinces are forced to release excess water due to lack of demand for hydropower, said Fan. The driver for the project was rooted in the allure of “increased GDP, investment and tax revenue,” he said.

Patricia Adams, the executive director of Probe International, has described these projects as useful props for the Chinese Communist Party. They placate the Western governments that pressure Beijing to reduce C02 emissions, she says. They also help to keep the country’s construction bubble from bursting.

The information contained in the following list of cascade dams in Sichuan Province compiled by Fan Xiao is current as of December 2023. Fan plans to complete a similar list for the province of Yunnan.

Further Reading

The truth about China’s stance on climate

The hanging Jinsha River and earthquakes

Mega-dams in China’s earthquake zones could have “disastrous consequences”

A new threat to safety along the Yangtze River

Earthquake hazards and large dams in western China

Geology expert Yang Yong on the challenges facing China’s most controversial dam projects