Xiluodu Dam on Yangtse
monster dams
There are big dams, and then there are mega-dams. Sichuan and Yunnan provinces in southwest China are home to the MONSTER dam. Under construction are dams with wall heights approaching 300 metres—close to the height of a 95-story building. The highest dam in the world is currently the Rogun in Tajikistan with a projected wall height of 335 metres.
Xiluodu Dam on the upper Yangtse is fast approaching completion: it will be the second-biggest dam in China, after the Three Gorges Dam. Xiluodu is expected to generate around 64 billion kWh per year—which would be equal to the entire hydropower capacity of Iceland.
A huge dam like this has the potential for creating environmental chaos—by disrupting fish migration and sediment flow, reducing biodiversity, and by degrading water quality. The dam itself poses a significant safety hazard as the structure ages. The resulting reservoir displaces entire communities, floods and fragments ecosystems, increases water-borne diseases, and could trigger earthquakes.
During the building of the Three Gorges Dam, over two million people had to be relocated because of the constant threat of landslides (a group of hydraulic engineers reported that over 4,700 landslides had taken place in the vicinity by March 2007). Construction of the Three Gorges and Xiluodu Dams on the Yangtse have been plagued by corruption, technical problems, human rights problems and profound environmental impact.
