Gorges Dam Project Assessing the

¶ … Gorges Dam Project Assessing the Environmental Impact of the Three Gorges Dam Project Costing $24B and having the dimensions that rival one of the American Great Lakes (Salazar, 2000) the Three Gorges Dam Project displaced 1.2 million people and forced the relocation of 116 cities and towns, the redistricting of a province and near extinction of thousands of plants and animals. The dam is the largest in the world by a wide margin, with a length of 7,661 feet, 607 feet tall and a base width of 377 feet containing the Yangtze River (Salazar, 2000).

When the dam was built, people relocated for the project were paid as little as $7 a month in compensation for having their land taken for this project. The socioeconomic impact alone has re-ordered the Chinese economy, yet the combination of these factors and the environmental costs are threatening the highest growth economic region of China just up-rive in Shanghai. The environmental impact has been even more significant with a complete re-ordering of the ecosystems that had prior to the dam being built, flourished in this region of China.

Systematic Analysis of the Three Gorge River Dam Environmental Impact To fully appreciate the environmental impact of the Three Gorge Dam project the ecosystems that rely on this region of China need to be taken into account. Most prevalent of all ecosystems in the area are the plants, trees, shrubs and animal life (Alberts, Alberts, Bloom, LaFlamme, Teerikangas, 2004).

Chinese officials never realized how interlinked the ecosystems for plants and wildlife are to their most prosperous region of the country, Shanghai, which today is seeing water quality diminish and the emergence of water-borne diseases due to the water stagnation (Alberts, Alberts, Bloom, LaFlamme, Teerikangas, 2004). Not seeing how intertwined these natural ecosystems are with the balance necessary to keep Shanghai healthy is now becoming even more visible throughout the region as a result of the massive dam.

The dam has also jeopardized the quality and abundance of fish throughout the entire region, from Shanghai northward. This is one of the primary sources of protein for millions of Chinese who live along the banks of the Yangtze River. The dam has been responsible for 25 of the river's 177 unique fish indigenous to the Yangtze River entering extinction status due to being overfished. The dam has virtually cot off the fish ecosystem, slicing it in two, leaving one side to be overfished and other downstream to prosper.

The dilemma the Chinese government faces is that the majority of citizens live on the side where salt water feeds in from the ports near Shanghai. This results not only in overfishing but contamination of fish eggs from fresh water fish and a drastically declining population of edible fish. This has also introduced salt water fish and marine life that can exist in fresh water, the many forms of Jellyfish being one of several who have made their way nearly a hundred miles inland on the river (Salazar, 2000).

If the dam had not been built the influx of marine life from the ocean would not have occurred, which would have led to a greater stabilization of the fish ecosystem. The many benefits of a fish and water-based ecosystems matter more in countries with lower per capita incomes where the waters are fished for regularly meals instead of for sport. In China, the river is the equivalent of the western world's grocery store.

Creating such a huge disruption to the river has in effect contaminated the "grocery store" for millions of residents who rely on the fish for a source of food along the river's bans. Not only has the "grocery store" for the millions of residents along the river been disrupted, it has nearly killed off to extinction the most unique water mammals only found in this area including the baiji dolphin (Salazar, 2000).

In retrospect, the Three Gorges Dam is a cautionary tale of what happens when a massive project is undertaken with no regard for the ecosystems that will be influenced by it. There has also been analysis of how the weight of the water held by the dam could potentially affect the Jiuwanxi and the Zigui -- Badong fault lines (Alberts, Alberts, Bloom, LaFlamme, Teerikangas, 2004). Both of these fault lines run beneath the massive reservoir and geophysicists are predicting the.