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. By Nectar Gan, published by CNN on July 31, […]
Li Rui, a Mao confidant who turned party critic, dies at 101
Li Rui, who died on Saturday at 101, “saw himself as a conscience of the revolution and the party,” said Roderick MacFarquhar, the late Harvard scholar of Chinese history. “But he had grave doubts about the system he spent his life serving.”
The Induced Earthquakes Database
Mining-related activity accounts for the most frequent cause of human induced seismicity, followed by water reservoir impoundment, according to The Induced Earthquakes Database – a comprehensive global review of all human-induced earthquakes.
The Three Gorges Dam: Do recent floods indicate flaws?
The Three Gorges Dam’s flood control performance continues to generate scrutiny. Jonathan Green for The Market Mogul asks how effective has the dam been period.
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.
Brahma Chellaney: China’s dam boom stokes concerns in Asia
The need for China to enter into institutionalized water-sharing arrangements with its downstream neighbours is key to building water cooperation and the protection of critical ecosystems but its reluctance to do so, says geostrategist and author Brahma Chellaney, is to secure its monetary and political power as the controller of Asia’s major waters.
No more major developments on the Yangtze River?
President Xi Jinping’s pledge to prioritize environmental protection and halt new development projects on the Yangtze is a promising turnaround for China’s beleaguered river pulse but don’t hold your breath.
China’s unspeakable consensus
“The Three Gorges Dam must be dismantled, and China’s political system must be changed,” writes veteran Chinese journalist Xiao Shu in this piece first published by the Taipei-based online news site, Storm Media. “To a great extent,” the author continues, “the Three Gorges Dam is the most apt metaphor for China’s political system.” A significant must-read.
The impending dam disaster in the Himalayas
Two of the most populous nations—China and India—are building hundreds of dams in a violently active geologic zone.
The world’s biggest hydropower project may be causing giant landslides in China
A massive landslide this week is only the latest natural disaster critics believe the Three Gorges Dam has caused—even officials admit there have been 70% more landslides and bank collapses in the dam’s reservoir area since it was built 12 years ago. Lily Kuo for Quartz reports.
Half empty: China’s vanishing “kidneys”
CCTV, China’s state broadcaster, looks at the use of remote sensing to monitor the country’s vanishing “kidneys” — wetlands that provide a range of invaluable ecosystem services that have become seriously under threat from rapid urbanization and modernization.
The heat is on for the ‘living fossil’
Despite its long lineage as one of the world’s oldest living species, the Chinese sturgeon — known as the “living fossil” because it dates back to the Cretaceous period — may not survive the surging dams and bridges built over the Yangtze River, reports China Daily.
China mulls new navigation channel in Three Gorges Dam area
Improving navigation conditions and increasing shipping capacity through the Three Gorges area along China’s famed Yangtze River was one of the chief reasons cited in favour of moving the project forward. Bottlenecks and shipping delays have become routine from the get-go, however, despite construction of the largest shiplock in the world to help ease hold-ups.
Concern mounts in China over Yangtze diversion project
China’s ambitious South-to-North Water Diversion project officially begins flowing next month and the impacts of the costly geo-engineering giant are starting to be felt in the regions tapped to redistribute water to the country’s parched north. “This project from the beginning has been as controversial as the Three Gorges,” says Probe International fellow and leading Chinese environmental journalist, Dai Qing.
Patricia Adams
Brady Yauch
Dai Qing
Fan Xiao
Lawrence Solomon
Mu Lan
Probe International
Lisa Peryman
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