The collapse of a section of southwestern China’s Hongqi Bridge exposes unstable slopes, rushed geological surveys, and the hidden risks of rapid dam impoundment.
The lesson of Hongqi Grand Bridge
The partial collapse of a new bridge in China’s Sichuan province this week riveted a global audience with the spectacle of disaster. The greater drama is China’s breakneck hydropower expansion.
‘Building on tofu’: Medog another project damming Tibet’s environment
Critics argue the Medog Hydropower Station in Tibet poses risks that are not worth the cost for a region that doesn’t support demand for the energy it would generate.
Four major hazards of the Jinsha River Tiger Leaping Gorge Hydropower Project
A blockbuster report by Chinese geologist Fan Xiao uncovers the deceit, censorship and raw force at play in the resurrection of a massive dam project in a geologically complex region.
Tibet earthquake raises a big question mark on China’s Yarlung Tsangpo super dam project
Why construct the world’s biggest dam in a seismically vulnerable region that doesn’t even require the energy it will generate?
Bigger than Three Gorges
China announces the construction of the world’s largest super dam on the Yarlung Zangbo River.
Aftershocks for Taiwan
As Taiwan recovers from its worst earthquake in 25 years, the island’s rescue efforts are now pitted against aftershocks.
Dammed to the hilt
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 […]
China’s Yarlung Tsangpo Great Bend mega-dam not feasible due to risks
A transboundary super dam proposed for occupied Tibet, near its border with India, poses significant concerns and risks. A report by Chinese geologist Fan Xiao delves into the infeasibility of the massive […]
A little chat about the recent 6.2 magnitude Jishishan earthquake
A 6.2-magnitude earthquake that struck China’s northwestern Gansu province late Monday, killing more than 100 people and injuring hundreds, occurred in an area prone to earthquakes on the northeastern edge of the […]
Dams cause earthquakes, earthquakes cause other earthquakes
A new study focused on the 6.8 M Luding earthquake in China’s Sichuan-Yunnan seismic zone, shows how dams make areas susceptible to earthquakes directly (through RIS) and indirectly by altering geological structures, […]
China’s dam rush
Critics query hydropower path to carbon neutrality.
China’s Three Gorges Dam is one of the largest ever created. Was it worth it?
The Three Gorges Dam was designed to tame China’s longest river. But this summer’s record rains reveal its limited ability to control floods.
Disgorging
More on the Three Gorges Dam’s flood control capabilities and its performance in one of the wettest seasons for China since the record-breaking El Niño event of 1997-98. In this report, The Economist concludes the country’s weakened river pulse is “in danger not only from floods but from its flood controls.”
Why is the flood control capacity of the Three Gorges Dam project being questioned again?
Because the project’s flood control capacity doesn’t work.
Patricia Adams
Dai Qing
Fan Xiao
Lawrence Solomon
Mu Lan
Probe International
Lisa Peryman
Patricia Adams and Lawrence Solomon
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