How did the Three Gorges Dam affect people?

One of the most controversial aspects of the mega-project was its enormous cost for villagers who had lived for centuries on the banks of the river. To make way for the dam's massive reservoir, about 1.4 million people were uprooted, their ancestral homes demolished, communities broken up and farmlands flooded.



People Also Ask

When the dam is completed, 13 cities, 140 towns and over 1,300 villages will be submerged by the Three Gorges Reservoir. To make way for the Three Gorges Dam, 1.5 million people will have to abandon their homes. More than 160,000 citizens have already been relocated.

MORE DETAILS

The most important effect that the construction of the Three Gorges Dam has had on Chinese society has been the displacement of millions of people from the Yangtze river region. In order to establish the reservoir, hundreds (possible thousands) of towns and villages were evacuated and later submerged.

MORE DETAILS

Dam construction has played significant roles in flood control, irrigation, navigation, and energy supply; however, the enormous negative effects, such as landslides, ecological problems, and water quality decline, could surpass positive gains.

MORE DETAILS

Moreover, a couple of other studies demonstrated that the construction of the TGD had an adverse effect on agricultural environment, including the agricultural water and the land resources [14,27,30]. However, on the other hand, its effective flood control function is able to reduce the scale and frequency of flooding.

MORE DETAILS

Chinese officials staged a sudden about-face, acknowledging for the first time that the massive hydroelectric dam, sandwiched between breathtaking cliffs on the Yangtze River in central China, may be triggering landslides, altering entire ecosystems and causing other serious environmental problems—and, by extension, ...

MORE DETAILS

While the construction of the Three Gorges Dam was an engineering feat, it has also been fraught with controversy: construction of the dam caused the displacement of at least 1.3 million people and the destruction of natural features and countless rare architectural and archaeological sites.

MORE DETAILS