(June 6, 2012) Reporter Shi Jiangtao sounds the alarm on China’s dam-building frenzy along the upper reaches of the Yangtze River, revisiting the findings of the 2011 Probe International study, “A Mighty River Runs Dry,” by geologist Fan Xiao.
(May 17, 2012) News of a nationwide survey on the precarious safety of China’s drinking water has brought an already volatile issue to the forefront of public concern, in part because the survey was never made public.
(April 18, 2012) The risk of disastrous landslides and bank collapses around the Three Gorges Dam reservoir prompts more upheaval for reservoir residents. A recent report by the environmental group Probe International sheds light on the risk of cascading failures of dams built in seismically active areas, as is the case with the entire upper Yangtze.
(April 13, 2012) Li Rui, a former vice minister for China’s Water Resources and Electric Power Ministry, describes the political machinations that moved the super-dam project forward and the ‘miserable repercussions’ of […]
China’s plan to invest more than 64 billion yuan ($10.13 billion) in the country’s South-to-North Water Diversion Project this year, will push the total investment to date over the 200 billion yuan mark (more than $30 billion).
(January 5, 2012) Yang Yong on the future of river management in China and the issues currently facing the country’s more controversial dam projects.
(October 21, 2011) China’s officials have admitted that the nation’s water supplies are dangerously polluted, and pledged to spend four trillion yuan on water conservation projects over the next decade. But money isn’t the problem; despite hundreds of billions of yuan already spent, pollution is only getting worse.
(October 20, 2011) A report released Wednesday by the Ministry of Land and Resources showed that the quality of over half of the underground water in China’s urban areas was classified as bad in 2010.
(October 18, 2011) From next year on, water quality will become a form of criteria used to evaluate the performance of local officials in Xichuan county of central China’s Henan province. The whole range of ecological indices to be adopted for official evaluation include the quality of water entering Xichuan, the establishment of tree plantations, the control of soil erosion and treatment of garbage and waste water, as well as the number of polluting enterprises that have been shut down.
(October 18, 2011) The Miyun Reservoir happens to be the major water supply for Beijing and the county is an important ecological shield. To protect the ecology of the area, no major industrial projects have been allowed in and around the Miyun area. In addition, farmers who live upstream from the reservoir are not allowed to use chemicals and fertilizers in crop production. So says China Daily.
(October 6, 2011) Golf, the “green opium”, is getting more and more popular in China as a symbol of wealth. New courses continue to be built, despite an official ban, exacerbating China’s urban water shortages.
A massive forced relocation is underway in Shaanxi: 3 million residents – double the number displaced by the Three Gorges Dam – will be moved from mountains and farming villages, in part, to make way for China’s South-North Water Diversion Project, reports Kathleen E. McLaughlin at GlobalPost. Migrants don’t even get full compensation for their lost homes. Instead, they’re only given about 10% of the cost – and forced to make up the rest by taking out government loans.
(September 5, 2011) City-dwellers in China say they have an urban water crisis with shortages and pollution posing the gravest threats, a new survey reveals.
(August 31, 2011) Financial rewards for bypassing dam safety procedures have
created an unrestrained dam-building boom in China that is threatening lives and the
environment.
(August 18, 2011) “The Yangtze River will run dry” because engineers have gone wild, building so many dams that the amount of water needed to fill all the reservoirs along the Yangtze would exceed the flow of the river. So says “A Mighty River Runs Dry,” a new study by geologist Fan Xiao of the Sichuan Geology and Mineral Bureau in China. Because there isn’t enough water in the Yangtze to fill all the dams to their designed capacity during the impoundment period each year, “an enormous waste of money” will result, with potentially staggering losses to China’s economy, 40 per cent of which comes from agriculture, fishing, industry and shipping along the Yangtze.
Patricia Adams
Dai Qing
Fan Xiao
Lawrence Solomon
Mu Lan
Probe International
Lisa Peryman
Probe Media
Other News Sources
Probe International 