Chinese Dams in this issue of "Science"

Science 12 March 2010: Vol. 327. no. 5971, p. 1311 DOI: 10.1126/science.327.5971.1311

NEWS OF THE WEEK

ECOLOGY:

Severe Drought Puts Spotlight on Chinese Dams

Richard Stone

XISHUANGBANNA, CHINA—Smoky haze hangs over the hills in this subtropical corner of China bordering Laos and Myanmar. The smoke is familiar: During the dry season, farmers across Yunnan Province burn fallen leaves, banana fronds, and more to make ash-based fertilizer. More unusual here, and more troubling, are the sickly yellow bamboo stands and the exposed bed of the Lancang River. "It's the worst drought in that region since 1949," the founding of the People's Republic of China, says Lu Juan, vice director of the Institute of Water Resources and Hydropower Research in Beijing.

Southwest China's monsoon-driven climate doesn't bring much precipitation in autumn and winter. But this year's dry season—coupled with a late start and early end to last year's rainy season—has left the region parched. Yunnan officials estimate that some 6 million people are short of drinking water and that the dry spell has ravaged winter wheat and other crops, inflicting $1.5 billion in losses.

The drought's effects have spilled across China's borders, stoking tensions with neighbors and prompting scientific debate. Rice yields in Thailand are expected to take a big hit, and the Mekong River—the name for the Lancang south of China—is in many stretches less than a meter deep, its lowest level in decades, making it impassable to tour boats and cargo ships. Researchers worry about how the low water level may affect fisheries and critically endangered species such as the Mekong giant catfish, which in the coming weeks would normally spawn in the upper Mekong.

Environmental groups in Thailand and elsewhere lay at least part of the blame on China's doorstep. They claim that China's management of a series of dams on the Lancang has aggravated the unfolding crisis. The Thai media has helped stir up emotions; one editorial in the Bangkok Post last month was headlined "China's dams killing Mekong." Yet Chinese engineers and some other scientists say the criticism is unfounded.

Rising tensions in Asia could usher in a protracted regional conflict over resources, especially as many key rivers cross several borders. In Asia, "competition for transboundary water utilization will be fierce," says He Daming, director of the Asian International River Centre of Yunnan University in Kunming. China will be at the center of many squabbles. With some 110 rivers and lakes straddling its borders with 19 countries, says He, "China is the most important upstream riparian country in Asia, even in the world."

A major feature in this vast waterworks is the 800,000-square-kilometer Lancang-Mekong basin, home to some 60 million people. From glacier-fed headwaters on the Qinghai-Tibetan plateau, the Lancang wends 2160 kilometers through southwestern China before entering the Golden Triangle region of Burma, Laos, and Thailand. The river finally spills into the South China Sea off Cambodia. In the late 1980s, China began work on eight cascades, or hydroelectric dams, on the Lancang's lower reaches, aiming to supply 15.6 gigawatts a year. Four have been completed, including Xiaowan, the tallest at 292 meters.

Some environmental groups contend that the Mekong flow regime has been altered by dredging and dam construction, suppressing fish catches. Living River Siam, a nonprofit based in Chiang Mai, Thailand, has called on governments to "immediately stop all works on hydropower and river development on the Lancang-Mekong."

Yet the dams on the lower Lancang reduce runoff only during the rainy season, when reservoirs are filling, according to Chen Guanfu of Hydrochina Corp. Dry season water releases should increase river volume by 35%. "There are a lot of accusations that the dams in China are exacerbating the current low water levels, but the Chinese have informed [downstream nations] that they will not fill any reservoir during the dry season," says Roger Mollot, a fisheries expert with the World Wide Fund for Nature in Vientiane, Laos. The dams would also help rein in flooding, says Zhou Shichun of the General Institute of Hydropower and Water Resource Planning and Design in Beijing.

The biggest ecological impact could be less sediment swept downstream as silt accumulates in the reservoirs. But that would be a good thing, Zhou insists: It would "facilitate irrigation and navigation" on the Mekong. Others, however, point out that decreased sediment loads will likely lead to erosion of downstream riverbanks and the Mekong Delta.

Hydropower authorities have taken ecological effects into consideration, Zhou says. Work on one dam—the Mengsong Cascade, which would be sited nearest the border—has been postponed indefinitely, he says, to protect four species of migratory fish, including the giant pangasius (Pangasius sanitwongsei), whose conservation status is uncertain (Science, 22 June 2007, p. 1684). The freshwater goliath has not been reported above the Mengsong dam site, so the other dams would not affect it, Zhou says.

The first victim of an ecological crisis could be the Mekong giant catfish, which has been on the ropes for years. "It isnot clear if the current drought conditions will impact successful spawning of the wild population of giant catfish, but low water levels may make them more vulnerable to fishing pressure," says Mollot.

Things may get worse due to climate change. After examining weather and tree ring data, Fan Ze-xin, a tree physiologist at Xishuangbanna Tropical Botanical Garden, has found that in the past 40 years Yunnan has grown warmer and drier—a trend that started long before the dams were built. In a nature reserve near the botanical garden, he grabs leaves from a seedling; dry as parchment, they disintegrate. "Some of these leaves are fresh," Fan says. "I haven't seen it as bad as this."

Two Years Later, New Rumblings Over Origins of Sichuan Quake

Science 5 March 2010:

Two Years Later, New Rumblings Over Origins of Sichuan Quake

Richard A. Kerr and Richard Stone
 
BEIJING—When experts suggested that the disastrous 2008 Wenchuan earthquake might have been triggered by the reservoir behind the Zipingpu Dam, establishment scientists in China remained largely silent (Science, 16 January 2009, p. 322). Now they've weighed in, ruling out reservoir triggering. But
many earth scientists don't buy their arguments.


No large quake had ruptured the Beichuan-Yinxiu fault in southwestern China's Sichuan Province in at least a millennium or two. Then engineers built Zipingpu Dam on the Min River just 500 meters from the fault and in late September 2005 began filling it with upward of 900 million tons of water. Two-and-a-half years later, the magnitude-7.9 Wenchuan earthquake got started 5 kilometers from the reservoir.

In the January issue of International Water Power and Dam Construction, three dam engineers at the China Institute of Water Resources and Hydropower Research here argue that the Zipingpu-Wenchuan situation was so unlike that of the four largest known reservoir-triggered earthquakes—all in the magnitude-6 range—that there could not have been a connection between reservoir and quake. The authors, led by structural engineer Chen Houqun, who has co-authored China's design code for building earthquake resistance into dams, contend that the timing was mere coincidence.

Oh Three Gorges.

Can't really post this with a straight face. Ah well, we'll hear more things like this when we actually visit the dam.

Also, if you click through to the link, you can hear a robo-voice read the article aloud in English.
=D

http://english.people.com.cn/90001/90778/90860/6899687.html


Three Gorges Dam champions clean energy program
09:02, February 23, 2010

Long before climate change became a global issue, inspiring reams of editorial coverage and the Copenhagen Summit, the Three Gorges Dam, the largest construction project in China since the building of the Great Wall, was attracting environmental ire around the world.

Now the mammoth decade-old project, the world's largest hydropower plant, contains a vast 175 m deep reservoir and stretches 660 km along the Yangtze River in central China. To date, it has generated 364.6 billion kW of electricity.

The China Three Gorges Corporation, the dam's operator, believes that the project's success has confounded the criticism of overseas commentators who sought to highlight its potentially negative impact on the environment. In fact, says the company, the dam is now playing a crucial role in reducing China's overall level of greenhouse gas emissions.

Li Yong'an, president of the China Three Gorges Corporation, recently received an award for his company's contribution to the development of China's clean energy program.

Three Gorges and the Freedom of Information Act?

"The Three Gorges dam on China’s Yangtze is the world’s largest and most expensive dam, though the final cost is unknown because of state secrecy. Estimates of its cost vary between $32 billion and $88 billion."


Interesting use of new legal mechanisms by an ordinary citizen to gain more information on Three Gorges. We'll see how this turns out.

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Rule of law meets the Three Gorges dam

Patricia Adams
Probe International / January 27, 2010

Ren Xinghui, a Beijing resident, has made headlines in the Chinese Internet press by using the country’s new disclosure law to request information about government funding of the Three Gorges dam.

Last October, Mr. Ren filed formal requests for bonds, loans, special electricity charges, among other sources of financing, from three key government departments in charge of the dam: the Ministry of Finance, the Three Gorges Project Construction Committee Executive Office under the State Council and the China Three Gorges Corporation.

The Three Gorges dam on China’s Yangtze is the world’s largest and most expensive dam, though the final cost is unknown because of state secrecy. Estimates of its cost vary between $32 billion and $88 billion. Corruption has plagued the project’s resettlement operation, which has flooded nearly 1.2 million people from their homes.

According to the law, Mr. Ren’s request for data on the dam’s cost is entirely by the book: Article one of the regulation, which came into force on May 1, 2008, states that its purpose is to safeguard “the legal access to government information by citizens, legal persons and other organizations, improving the transparency of government work, promoting the administration according to law and giving full play to the role of government information of serving the people’s production, living and social and economic activities.”

Mr. Ren's attempt to use the law to secure government spending records is pioneering. Government officials who fielded his initial requests last October seemed caught off guard, denied knowledge of such things, couldn’t find responsible officials (they were away on a business trip or occupied in meetings), cited internal procedures for prohibiting the submission of the requests and directed Mr. Ren to the Propaganda Office.

Now, having considered his initial request, the Ministry of Finance has rejected it on the grounds that the income and expenditure of the dam project was made available in 2008 and that Mr. Ren’s own production, domestic or research affairs are not affected by the expenditures, so he has no right to the data.

Mr. Ren disputes this and argues that he, like all Chinese electricity consumers, has been forced to contribute to the Three Gorges Construction Fund through a special charge in their electricity rates. On that basis, he says, he is entitled to see the financing and cost data.

On Monday, Ren Xinghui filed his suit against the Ministry of Finance with Beijing’s No. 1 Intermediate People's Court, asking it to decree that the Ministry of Finance provide the data on the cost of the Three Gorges to him. The Court is now reviewing whether to accept the case.

URL: http://www.probeinternational.org/three-gorges-probe/rule-law-meets-three-gorges-dam

Three Gorges may force 300,000 more to relocate

The impacts and unanticipated consequences of large hydro continue to rise, as the Guardian reports. We'll be getting to this topic in a couple of weeks, so stay tuned!

Three Gorges Dam may force relocation of a further 300,000 people
Chinese government report recommends the relocation of an extra 300,000 people at risk of landslides and water pollution

Jonathan Watts
Friday 22 January 2010

A further 300,000 people must be relocated from around China's Three Gorges dam - in addition to the 1.2 million who have already been forced to leave their homes, according to a draft government report.
Less than two years after completion of the world's biggest hydroelectric power plant, site engineers have found landslides and water pollution are more severe than anticipated, prompting calls for drastic remedial efforts.

In a report drawn up over the past year, the managers of the project and regional officials recommend the withdrawal of people from long stretches of the reservoir's banks.