THE IMPACTS OF THE THREE GORGES DAM

There were many impacts on some places of Chins because of the three gorges dam such as economic, environmental and social. The dam was built across the Yangtze river near to Chongqing and Wuhan which got flooded and destroyed many times before the dam was built. The biggest economic problem of the three gorges dam is that it costs 22.5$ billion! The government has lost a huge amount of money but has also saved a lot through building the dam because they prevented further floodings and destroyment of houses, nature etc. Another negative economic aspect of the three gorges dam is that many of the fertile land had to be destroyed to make space for the dam. 10 % of grain supply has been lost of which 50 % is rice. To make up for this China will have to import more grain and rice from other countries which also is a financial loss. A very positive economic factor is that larger ships can travel up and down the Yangtze river, this is enabled because of the shiplocks at the three gorges dam. The shiplocks allow 12 large ships to travel over the Yangtze river at once! It has been estimated that the transportation costs have reduced 35-37%. China is running out of water because of the high population it has, so it is very useful that the dam can provide hundreds of people with fresh water. The environmental impacts after the construction of a dam have significant negative impacts on the environment, the three gorges dam is not different. The construction of the dam has impacts both upstream from the dam and downstream. Many animals are affected by the dam, there are about 300 different species of fish in the Yangtze river and the dam makes a barrier between them. This also means some fish will not be able to travel upstream to spawn. Another negative environmental fact is that poisonous levels of sewage and factory waste builds up in the reservoir which harms wildlife like the Yangtze river dolphin and humans. The Yangtze river is also polluted by the shipping of coal and acid rain. There are also some positive environmental facts about the dam, for example that hydroelectricity is clean energy so no fuel is burned, and no carbon dioxide (CO2) is made. This means the dam is helping to reduce global warming. There are also other positive environmental facts, the three gorges dam replaces up to 50 million tons of coal in Chinas energy use, prevents more acid rain and improves health standards because the air is cleaner. There are also social impacts because of the three gorges dam, a negative one is that 1.3-1.9 billion people who lived along the Yangtze river were forced to move from their houses because of the construction of the dam.

The way the Chinese government forced people to move from their homes is called the lump sum method. This method does not always mean equal resettlement. For example the people might be forced to buy more expensive homes than the money they were given by the government. Another negative social fact is that the construction of the three gorges dam destroyed many religious sites. The government set funds to save the sites but due to the time pressure and personal shortage the sites may not have been saved or preserved correctly. There are also some positive social impacts of the dam, for example that before the dam was built there used to be a flooding every 10 years. With the construction of the dam it is estimated that there should be a small flooding every 100 years. This means that thousands of lives, houses, businesses etc. are saved. The construction of the dam indicates less flooding and should improve all other negative factors too. The impact of the dam was quite positive because there are some very strong positive impacts on China because of the three gorges dam for example that the import costs are lower etc. but there are also some negative factors like the big financial loss etc. It was a good decision to build the dam though because lives, houses and environment were saved through it.

Christos Stambolidis