Downstream Environmental Impacts
by Joseph S. Larson, Ph.D.
The
impacts which may occur downstream do not affect the overall
environmental feasibility and may indeed enhance the environment.1
Chapter 5
Potential Methyl Mercury Contamination in the Three Gorges Reservoir
by Alan Penn, M.Sc.
Background on Methyl Mercury Contamination
Chapter 4
Three Gorges Reservoir: Environmental Impacts
by David L. Wegner, M.Sc.
Background
A
reservoir is an impounded body of water created when a river or stream
is dammed and water is allowed to store. This impoundment of water has
an immediate impact on the physical and biological systems within the
reservoir which needs to be understood before the full range of
environmental impacts can be properly evaluated.
Chapter 3
Resettlement Plans for China’s Three Gorges Dam
by Philip M. Fearnside, Ph.D.
Chapter 2
What Dam Builders Don’t Want You to Know: A Summary
Chapter 1
Damming the Three Gorges: 1920 – 1993
Introduction
by Gráinne Ryder
Just weeks before the massacre at Tiananmen Square, China’s growing environmental movement had scored a momentous victory by successfully opposing the government’s plans to build the massive Three Gorges Dam on the Yangtze River. Vice Premier Yao Yilin had announced that the highly contentious project would be postponed for at least five years, saying that: “people do not need to spend too much energy debating this issue for the time being.”1 The unprecedented public repudiation of the proposed Three Gorges Dam was short-lived, however. It ended at Tiananmen Square, when the critics of the Three Gorges Dam were jailed and silenced along with other members of the pro-democracy movement.
Editor’s note to 2nd edition
This book is an updated and expanded edition of Damming
The Three Gorges: What Dam Builders Don’t Want You To Know, a critique
of a Canadian government-World Bank feasibility study of China’s Three
Gorges Dam. Originally published in September 1990, this book exposed
the flawed analyses and compromised calculations evident in the
official justification of a large dam project. Since the first edition
was published, others have discovered the same defects in other
justifications of other large dam projects.
About the contributors
About the Editors
Gráinne Ryder
worked as an engineer in Thailand on village water supply projects for
three years before joining Probe International in 1987 as a water
resources researcher. She headed an international effort to stop the
Three Gorges Project until 1990 when she returned to Thailand to
coordinate a campaign against a series of dams on the Mekong River.
Acknowledgements
We wish to give special thanks to Patricia Adams for her rigorous
editorial assistance, and her unflagging enthusiasm for the book.
Special
thanks also to Lawrence Solomon, for his patience and guidance
throughout preparation of the book, for his expert help with writing
and editing, and for his humour when driving a point home.
Beijing Olympics taking water from the countryside
(July 9, 2008) “The 500,000 foreign visitors expected to visit Beijing will certainly get to see some beautiful waterworks, such as the largest fountain in the world in Shunyi. No problem! But the question is: what will happen after the Games? How will people cope?” asks journalist Dai Qing.
Green Games race against grime
(July 8, 2008) In response to a Probe International report, Beijing Water Authority’s Bi Xiaogang said that the city’s heavy reliance on shrinking groundwater reserves was not ideal.
PRESS RELEASE Ethnic minorities in southwestern China threatened by hydro development, group tells World Heritage Forum in Quebec
(July 8, 2008) In a letter obtained by Probe International and submitted to the World Heritage Committee meeting in Quebec City this week, a group of Lisu minority youth said that hydropower development along the Nu River would destroy one of the world’s most culturally and biologically diverse regions.
CHINA: ‘Within a generation Beijing will cease to exist’
(July 1, 2008) According to a newly published report by Probe International, Beijing’s 200 or so rivers and streams are drying up and many of the city’s reservoirs are nearly empty.
Stress changes from the 2008 Wenchuan earthquake and increased hazard in the Sichuan basin
(July 1, 2008) An article published recently in the journal Nature provides in-depth details about the area where the Wenchuan earthquake hit and particularly the state of stress in the crust of the Earth in the area.
Probe International 