Three Gorges Dam
Three Gorges Dam, dam on the Yangtze River (Chang Jiang) just west of the city of Yichang in Hubei province, China. When construction of the dam officially began in 1994, it was the largest engineering project in China. At the time of its completion in 2006, it was the largest dam structure in the world. The dam and accompanying hydroelectric plant were built in phases and over the course of many years. It reached its full generating capacity in 2012. The dam allows the navigation of oceangoing freighters and generates hydroelectric power. It was also intended to provide protection from floods, but efficacy on this point is unclear and has been debated.
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. The dam’s reservoir is blamed for an increase in the number of landslides and earthquakes in the region.
Physical description and capacity of the Three Gorges Dam
A straight-crested concrete gravity structure, the Three Gorges Dam is 2,335 metres (7,660 feet) long with a maximum height of 185 metres (607 feet). It incorporates 28 million cubic metres (37 million cubic yards) of concrete and 463,000 metric tons of steel into its design. Submerging large areas of the Qutang, Wu, and Xiling gorges for some 600 km (375 miles) upstream, the dam has created an immense deepwater reservoir allowing oceangoing freighters to navigate 2,250 km (1,400 miles) inland from Shanghai on the East China Sea to the inland city of Chongqing. Navigation of the dam and reservoir is facilitated by the five-tier ship locks at both ends of the complex, which allow vessels of up to 10,000 tons to navigate past the dam, and a ship lift, which allows vessels of up to 3,000 tons to bypass the ship locks and travel past the dam more quickly. At the time of its completion in late 2015, the lift, which was 120 metres (394 feet) long, 18 metres (59 feet) wide, and 3.5 metres (11 feet) deep, was the largest ship lift in the world.
Limited hydroelectric power production began in 2003 and gradually increased as additional turbine generators came online over the years until 2012, when all of the dam’s 32 turbine generator units were operating. Those units, along with 2 additional generators, gave the dam the capacity to generate 22,500 megawatts of electricity, making it the most productive hydroelectric dam in the world. In 2020 the hydroelectric plant produced 111.88 terawatt hours, setting a new world record for annual power generation volume.
The dam also was intended to protect millions of people from the periodic flooding that plagues the Yangtze basin, although just how effective it has been in this regard has been debated. In 2020 China experienced its heaviest floods in more than three decades, and the dam’s reservoir neared maximum capacity, reaching the highest levels since it began retaining water in 2003. Officials said that the dam reduced damage and loss of life from the floods, while critics asserted that the heavy floods served to highlight the limitations of the dam as an effective flood-control tool.
