Understanding the Connection of Dams and the Larger Global Environment

The interconnectedness of our global environment ranges not only from our plants and animal interactions of the biotic kingdom, but also to the non living aspects of human life: spiritual, and political sections which shape the history of our earth. Evaluating the construction of dams on a global scale provides a scope through which to examine the similarities and differences across the globe build for divergent reasons but with similar devastating end results locally and globally. Examining the political side of these projects and the displacement of people, combined with the historical importance of losing spiritual lands and monuments coalescing with ecosystem disturbances through species loss, illuminates the connection of the damage of damming our global rivers.

Dam Statistics

• The world's dams have shifted so much weight that geophysicists believe they have slightly altered the speed of the earth's rotation, the tilt of its axis, and the shape of its gravitational field.
•  Scientists estimate that six to twelve times the number of people have been non-directly displaced by dams, a conservative 472 million people.
•   The turbines of the earth's dams generate a fifth of the world's electricity supply, and the water they store makes as much as a sixth of the earth's food production possible.
• Between the completion of the Hoover Dam and the end of the 20th century, more than 45,000 large dams (dams at least five stories tall) were built in 140 countries.
• The Hoover Dam supplies power to 25 million people
• Up to 90 percent of the Colorado River's water comes from snowmelt.
• In the case of the Hoover Dam, if the ongoing drought lowers the reservoir another 50 feet (currently down more than 125 feet), the hydroelectric turbines will be inoperable.
• The milky waters of the Little Colorado River tributary in the Grand Canyon are the last sanctuary for the endangered humpback chub. 
• The Colorado river irrigates 3.5 million acres of crops and supports 30 million people who drink, swim, boat and divert the water to generate electricity throughout the parched southwestern United States and northern Mexico

Dam Problems: The Colorado Case Study

        The vast majority (about 90%) of the Colorado River comes from snowpack, high in the Rocky Mountains, and then travels south nearly 1,500 miles through deserts and canyons to wetlands of a huge delta in Mexico and then into the Gulf of California. Or at least it used to for millions of years. “…beginning in the 1920s, Western states began divvying up the Colorado’s water, building dams and diverting flow hundreds of miles to Los Angeles, Sand Diego, Phoenix and other fast growing cities.” (Zielinski) Today not a drop of the Colorado River reaches the Gulf of California.

"The battle over dams is at the core of worldwide conflicts involving water scarcity, environmental degradation, globalization, social justice, and the growing gap between rich and poor."- Jacques Leslie


Socioeconomic Degradation

            Although the conflict of dams is a global problem, the Southwest region has a very local example of just how degrading their effects can be. By looking at the over-damming(The Colorado River supports over 20 dams) of the Colorado River, especially the Hoover and the Glen Canyon dam, we can see exactly how the dams came to be and why they are now such a problem.  


How the dams along the Colorado River came to be is a large part of Southwestern environmental history. The first of the major dams, the Hoover Dam, especially shaped history along with the environment in several ways. The timing of its construction in 1936 was a large part of recovering from the depression, but not at the cost of the people or the environment. Jacques Leslie satirically wrote when speaking of removing the Hoover Dam;   "Take it away, and you remove a slice of American history, including a piece of the recovery from the Depression, when news of each step in the dam's construction- the drilling of the diversion tunnels, the building of the earth-and-rock cofferdams, the digging to bedrock, the first pour of foundation, the accretion of five-feet-high cement terraces that eventually formed the face- heartened hungry and dejected people across the country. And take away the jobs the dam provided ten or fifteen thousand workers, whose desperation compelled them to accept risky, exhausting labor for four dollars a day- more than 200 workers died during Hoover's construction."

         The global problems of dams consist of the displacement of people, loss of ecosystems and even spiritual places. In the case of the Colorado, the loss of these things is not always direct. The loss of people along the Colorado was indirect due to the location of the dams mostly in low populated deserts unlike The Three Gorges Dam. The case of the Colorado does however have a very direct impact on the creation of cities in what would other wise not exist. Even now, Hoover Dam provides 90 percent of Las Vegas' water, “turning a desert outpost into the fastest-growing metropolis in the country”. The Hoover Dam not only brought a great misallocation of resources (water and hydroelectric power) but also encouraged the many new dams that followed on the Colorado, such as the Glen Canyon, Davis, Parker, Headgate Rock, Palo Verde, and more all the way to the Morelos and across the Mexican border. The river now serves 30 million people in seven U.S. states and Mexico, with 70 percent or more of its water siphoned off to irrigate 3.5 million acres of cropland. John Waterman describes what it was like in his first hand account of traveling along the Colorado River to come to find the diminishing flow of where it once traveled. "I splashed out in bare feet, worried that our most iconic white water river would make me physically ill. My companion, Pete McBride, stayed clean by climbing out through the tamarisk trees. We tried to wipe the river shit off our pack rafts with tamarisk fronds, cursing the system that has diminished the Mighty Colorado to a stinking cesspool." 

The dams also destroyed part of the spiritual and cultural lives of the Cocopa Indians. This tribe faced faced cultural extinction because they fished and farmed the Delta for more than a millennium prior to the dam. Downstream fishermen and farmers also their lives and livelihoods altered or even destroyed by dams, many of them poor people who found it hard to adapt. (Minard) Before the construction of the dam, the river carried nutrients necessary to fuel fisheries and marine life to the Gulf of California. (Leslie) Not a drop of the Colorado River reaches the Gulf of California today. Besides the loss to the indigenous peoples, the river also obscured inscriptions by Everett Reuss along the walls of the Glen Canyon. (Sleight)

Ecological Degradation

         The environmental and ecological damages of dams are also overwhelming. The several dams in the desert southwest change the nature of the river ecosystem. The Glen Canyon Dam for example was an originally warm, sediment-filled, muddy river, which now runs cold and clear, significantly impacting downstream ecosystems. “Over night in March 1963, as Lake Powell began filling, Glen Canyon Dam refrigerated and cleared the Grand Canyon's river of sediment. This flipped on a floodlight into an ecosystem that spent the last five million years adapting to the dark.” (Waterman) Three species have already become extinct in the Grand Canyon and many others have become endangered throughout the river: the Humpback chub, and razorback sucker, whose populations are monitored by tags implanted by marine biologists.

Photo by Peter McBride

On the stretch of the Colorado River that flows through the Grand Canyon National Park, Glen Canyon Dam has starved beaches of silt, and turned historically rough, sediment-rich water into a clear, cold flow that has been fatal to native fish but favorable to nonnative trout. “Native vegetation was giving way to invasive tamarisk trees (which use a much greater amount of water than the native plant species), and endangered fish teetered on the brink of extinction before activist groups and federal biologists began to try turning back the clock.” (Minard)

 Another huge problem is the loss of water along the river and throughout the reservoirs. “The river has been running especially low for the past decade, as drought has gripped the Southwest. It still tumbles through the Grand Canyon, much to the delight of rafters and other visitors. And boaters still roar across Nevada and Arizona’s Lake Mead, 110 miles long and formed by the Hoover Dam. But at the lake’s edge they can see lines in the rock walls, distinct as bathtub rings, showing the water level far lower than it once was—some 130 feet lower, as it happens, since 2000. Water resource officials say some of the reservoirs fed by the river will never be full again.” (Zielinski) And According to John Waterman in his National Geographic article, in the case of the Hoover Dam, if the ongoing drought lowers the reservoir another 50 feet (currently down more than 125 feet), the hydroelectric turbines will be inoperable. Peter McBride who spent many year photographing the Colorado River recalls, “It’s sad to see the mighty Colorado River come to a dribble and end some 50 miles north of the sea.”

Photo by Peter McBride

Dam Solutions: Efforts to Restore the River

The damming and diverting of the Colorado, may be seen by some as a triumph of engineering and by others as a crime against nature, but the advantages of dams are quite obvious, "They supply hydropower that has fueled the growth of urban centers from Seattle to Shanghai, facilitated agriculture and enabled water storage for a plethora of other uses." (Minard) But the question arises of whether the benefits outweigh the costs in the long run. Efforts to turn back time in a sense are being proposed in many cases of major dams. Richard Clayton, a Hydraulic Engineer for the U.S Bureau of Reclamation's Upper Colorado Region said, “We didn’t even consider endangered fish when we built Glen Canyon Dam,” But the dam’s operations have undergone intense scrutiny in recent decades, on behalf of the imperiled ecosystem below the dam. A multimillion-dollar effort to modify flows to help recover the native ecosystem, including several endangered species, has shown mixed success. As part of the solution at Glen Canyon, Clayton also said, “we’re limited in how fast we can ramp up or ramp down releases from the dam [for power generation], and we have a maximum range of fluctuation each day,”. As a result, power generation has been reduced by as much as a third, at a higher cost to power utilities, which so far have managed to avoid rate increases for customers. (Minard)

Photo by Peter McBride

Although some ideas for "solutions" have been put into action, there are even more unavoidable circumstances. "The river has been running especially low for the past decade, as drought has gripped the Southwest. When the Colorado River withdrawals were first allocated among the river basin’s seven states, in 1922, the river held 17.5 million acre-feet (5.7 trillion gallons) of water. However, new science has shown that 1922 was part of an especially wet period. The river now averages about 14.7 million acre-feet per year and is allocated among seven states and Mexico. Water managers are trying to address growing challenges associated with over-allocation, rapidly increasing urban populations, development of unused water rights, and expected climate change. The water levels of the river’s two largest reservoirs—Lake Mead and Lake Powell, stored by Hoover and Glen Canyon Dams—have dropped significantly in recent years, threatening supplies for major cities. In addition, the trapping of silt behind dams also limits the quality and extent of river habitats." (Minard) However, the dam planning process is evolving. What used to be at the hands of bureaucrats, engineers, and economists, has now expanded to include environmentalists and anthropologists. Although solutions to existing dams will not come easily, hopefully the knowledge of existing dams will help to influence the creation of inevitable dams to come.

The Three Gorges Dam, Yangtze River, China

Three Gorges Dam Statistics:
The world's largest dam, 4 times larger than the Hoover Dam
Height: 185 m (600 feet)
Length: 1.983 km (1.24 miles)
Water Height: 175 m above sea level (570 ft)
Cost: Original estimates in 1990 were US $12 billion, recent estimates put the cost at US $30 billion
Financing: 90% Chinese and 10% foreign investment
Completion date: 2009
Materials used: 10.82 million tons cement, 1.92 million tons rolled steel, 1.6 million cubic meters timber
Reservoir created: 576 km (360 miles) long--the length of Lake Superior
Land submerged: 13 cities, 140 towns, 1,352 villages, 657 factories and approx. 75,000 acres of cultivated land
Re-locations: 12,679 communities totaling 1.3 million people
Building Statistics:
    Phase 1 began in 1994 and ended in 1997 with the initial diversion of the Yangtze     River .
    Phase 2 began in 1998 and is due to end in 2003 when the water level rises to 156     meters (511 feet) and the dam starts generating electricity.
    Phase 3 ended in 2009 when the water level reached 175 meters (574 feet) and     full power generation began.

 (Photo from Christian Science Monitor, Ford)

About the Yangtze River:
The Yangtze River is the longest river in Asia and third longest in the world. The headwaters of the Yangtze are situated at an elevation of about 16,000 feet in the Kunlun Mountains in the southwestern section of Qinghai province. It flows south through Sichuan province into Yuanan then slightly northeast across central China to its mouth, 3,720 miles in total, in the East China Sea north of Shanghai. The river has over 700 tributaries and the surrounding climate ranges from 96 degrees in the summer to cold temperatures in the winter. Precipitation is high due to the mountainous terrain.  Approximately 350 million people are throughout to inhabit inhabit the region of the Yangtze along with a rife variety of wildlife along the river which include the Tibetan antelopes, Mongolian gazelles, and the famous snow leopards. Traditionally, the waters of the Yangtze have been used for rice and wheat irrigation.  However, the creation of the Three Gorges Dam has harnessed the potential energy from the Qutang Gorge, The Wuxia Gorge and the Xiling Gorge.  one of the largest platforms for controversy is the fact that the area is very prone to earthquakes. the dam lies directly on a fault line, leaving it directly vulnerable to amplified natural disasters.  Actually, the plateau and gorges of the Yangtze were created by collision of the Indian-Australian plate with the Eurasian plate, geologic movement which began  well over 40 million years ago and continues modernly.
“Nearly 4,000 miles long, the Yangtze has watered civilizations for millennia—and laid waste to them too. The eighth-century poet Li Bai wrote that navigating the river was ‘even harder than climbing the sky.’ The 20th-century novelist Pearl S. Buck dubbed it ‘the wildest, wickedest river" for its murderous floods.’” (Frail)

Swimming
Great plans are afoot:
A bridge will fly to span the north and south,
Turning a deep chasm into a thoroughfare;
To hold back Wushan's clouds and rain
Till a smooth lake rises in the narrow gorges.
The mountain goddess if she is still there
Will marvel at a world so changed. 

Poem by China's former Communist Leader Mao Tse-tung (PBS)

(Smithsonian)

Damming the Yangzee: Before and After, a visual approach

A view from above,

Image of Three Gorges Dam, May 2006, courtesy NASA Earth Observatory

Damming Plans and the Forseen Displacement of People

James Witlow Delano Photography

 Damming Plans and Opposition

    The project has been under consideration by various leaders in China since the idea of a dam was first proposed in 1919. The Three Gorges Dam is both a marvel of engineering and the greatest challenge its designers and engineers have ever faced. The dam was built with twice the amount of concrete of the Itaipu project in Brazil, which until the construction completion was the largest on the planet. The Three Gorges project has been engineered to store over 5 trillion gallons of water and to withstand an earthquake of 7.0 on the Richter scale (Larson). The reservoir will allow 10,000 ton freighters to enter the nation's interior, which currently limits access to boats under 1,500 tons, boosting the economy. In addition to increasing commercial shipping access to China's interior, the government claimed that the dam will control devastating floods and provide much-needed electrical power to China's growing cities which were all cumulatively attractive reasons to ignore criticism at home and abroad.
    An article by CNN titled, “China's Biggest Construction Project Since the Great Wall Generates Controversy at Home and Abroad” unveils the issues surrounding the construction of this giant. Scrutiny around the globe has been directed towards this large project from its conception.  Even relating it to the great wall has historical stigmas attached with it which are negative.  Although leaders and authorities in the government hoped that this project would solve many problems with one action, it has only made their lives more complicated since its completion in 2009.  CNN author, Bruce Kennedy reports, “Concerns have surfaced about the dam itself. Allegations of corruption among officials involved with the project have raised fears of shoddy construction. The Chinese media recently reported several incidents in which corruption and poor construction have led to disasters at major building projects. Notable among the reports was the collapse of a steel bridge in the city of Chongqing in January 1999 that killed 40 people.” He continued on to report, “Such incidents also have prompted rare open criticism from the Chinese leadership regarding the Three Gorges Dam. In early 1999 Chinese Premier Zhu Rongji inspected the dam site. He warned those involved in the project that ‘the responsibility on your shoulders is heavier than a mountain. Any carelessness or negligence will bring disaster to our future generations and cause irretrievable losses.’”  Activists in China who opposed the construction of the dam for ecological, safety and spiritual reasons were jailed, and their voices quelled by the government. 

The Displacement of People

People are forced to relocate to make way for the dam (PBS).

Chinese authorities hope the dam will take care of several major national problems with a single monumental stroke. The Three Gorges project is seen as an important future source of energy for China's population and hence increasing electrical consumption. It is also expected to tame the Yangze River, notorious for floods which have been recorded for thousands of years and have claimed more than 1 million lives in the past century. However, the reality of this monumental feat of engineering is the social impact it will had on so many lives of chinese citizens who had no voice. 
    Based on a PBS special focusing on the Three Gorges Dam and its impact on the surrounding people and environment there was too much to loose:

• In the past 2,000 years, the Yangtze River has experienced 215 catastrophic floods.
• In 1998 flooding in the area expected to be controlled by the dam resulted in 4,000 dead, 14 million left homeless and $24 billion in economic loss.
• 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.
• Upon the dam's completion, 1,300 known archeological sites will be lost forever under water.
• Over 360 million people live within the watershed of the Yangtze River. If the one in one thousand chance of a dam collapse occurred, the millions of people who live downstream would be endangered.

Through analysis of many reports which focus on similar tales of social destruction, the social perspective of the effects of the three gorges dam promoted more question about how something like this could have been allowed. The dam literally "drowned" more than 100 towns and villages when the water began to rise in 2003. Government estimates said that 1.2 million people were be resettled and that new land was being provided for 300,000 farmers (PBS). Some observers say the government may be underestimating by as many as 700,000 the number of people who actually were forced to relocate.  Farmers who lost their cropland were forced to relocate and were not necessarily successful in continuing their traditional lifestyle.  It is these kind of disruptions which are not able to be quantified or measured by the original governmental estimates or reports.  According to reports from the Christian Science Monitor while the dam was under construction, “The weight of the water that has built up behind the dam is causing regular seismic disturbances that have forced the relocation of 50,000 people, according to the official Xinhua News Agency” (Ford). These were not planned disturbances as part of the original estimates, and were likely not included in much of the information on the dam and its social impact.  Globally and historically this is an issue with building projects, and as a global society who chooses to manipulate our surroundings, using the past as foresight may prove to be a proactive decision regarding future choices like these.

James Whitlow Delano Photography, People of the Yangtze Basin dismantling their own homes to make way for the dam's water.

Historical and Spiritual Loss   
The implementation of the Three Gorges Dam, without was devastating as a result of political and social reasons, other unquantifiable aspects of culture were lost forever.  The Three Gorges area contains an extensive amount of historical landmarks and religious places which stood as a testament of Chinese cultural past and heritage.  What was flooded by the river becoming its new basin were archeological sites both discovered and those unobserved, their information an stories of the past obscured by the depth of the river. 
Marta Ponseti and Jordi López-Pujol write in their research paper titled, The Three Gorges Dam Project in China: history and consequences, “Many and different cultures have inhabited the place that will be submerged by the dam filling, such as the Daxi (ca. 5000-3200 B.C.), which was the earliest Neolithic culture in the Three Gorges area, and its successor cultures, the Chujialing (ca. 3200-2300 B.C.) and the Shijiahe (ca. 2300-1800 B.C.). The distinctive Ba culture (ca. 2000-220 B.C.) also grew up in the Three Gorges area.  The Three Gorges Dam project will have a significant negative effect on the cultural heritage of the Yangtze Basin, because it will be virtually impossible to collect and document all the cultural and archaeological sites threatened by the reservoir before its filling. In 2000, it was estimated that the area to be inundated contained at least 1,282 cultural heritage places, but this figure may have significantly increased due the many archaeological campaigns performed in recent years. All the information not collected before the completion of the dam in 2009, will never be recovered.” Rescue activities were attempted, but due to a rather short time frame and a lack of funding, much of the cultural and historical artifacts and monuments were swallowed up. 
    Through understanding one’s heritage and having a connection to the special places of your birthplace humans foster a sense of responsibility and stewardship for the land.  Without this meaningful connection, our relationship with the environment becomes one focused solely on exploitation, ignoring the need to preserve space and species because of the lack of emotional connection to it, making the loss of archeological and spiritual places in the Yangtze River basin more relevant after a second glance.  This negative relation only builds a positive feedback loop, amplifying problems with the general populations relationship to their surroundings.

Ecological Destruction, the dams impacts on a larger global biosphere

Ecological Destruction
Perhaps one of the hardest realities of damming rivers is the ecological destruction which exists as a consequence.  Around the world we watch ad species are decimated, lands reclaimed by water and infrastructure taking over, some of these outcomes planned and others unforeseen in organizing. Ranging from land loss and negative effects on the soil and vegetation to unforeseen pollution to species loss, ecological disaster seems to follow dams.
According to PBS and their focus on the problems of the Three Gorges Dam, there is far more than meets they eye with this ecological controversy:
Over 265 billion gallons of raw sewage are dumped into the Yangtze annually. Currently the river flushes this downstream and out into the ocean. Upon completion of the Three Gorges project, the sewage will back up in the reservoir.

• Over 1,600 factories and abandoned mines will be submerged when the dam is completed. Environmentalists predict that toxins associated with industry and mining will create a hazard for the animals and people who depend on the river for survival.
• Over 700 million tons of sediment are deposited into the Yangtze annually, making it the fourth largest sediment carrier in the world. Experts believe that this sediment will build up behind the dam, with only an unproven system of sluice gates to release it.

An excerpt from a TIME Magazine article outlines associated issues with the Three Gorges Dam and the seemingly exponential environmental consequences of its construction:
   
“Now, however, scientists say things are getting worse. The water quality of the Yangtze's tributaries is deteriorating rapidly, as the dammed river is less able to disperse pollutants effectively. The incidence of algae blooms has risen steadily since the reservoir was completed in 2006. The rising water is also causing rampant soil erosion, resulting in riverbank collapses and landslides along the shores of the Yangtze's tributaries. Professor Lei Hengshun, an environmentalist at Chongqing University who has devoted years to studying and preserving the Three Gorges ecosystem, says that if the water level of the reservoir reaches its planned height of 165 meters next year, it will bring tributaries of the Yangtze River under even greater environmental threat. ‘Now it's a good time to review the problems that have arisen,’ he says, ‘before a larger flooded area brings an even bigger impact on the tributaries’"(Yang.)
The dam's environmental troubles go hand in hand with growing political issues.  "Li Peng, the dam's most ardent supporter, stepped down as Premier in 1998 and has little influence among China's current leadership. The recent storm of criticism the dam has garnered could be a result of political jockeying in the run-up to next week's Communist Party Congress, a five-yearly event in which the coming reshuffles of the Party's senior ranks are usually decided. But it's also possible that the criticism is a sign that the Chinese government has reached the point at which it must do something to address the country's serious — and growing — ecological concerns. It's been a turbulent year for China's environment. In May, a blue algae outbreak on picturesque Lake Tai in Wuxi city rendered tap water for 80% of the local families undrinkable for a week. In June, 10,000 citizens in the coastal city of Xiamen took to the streets to protest against the imminent construction of a new chemical plant. Pan Yue, Deputy Director of the State Environmental Protection Administration, said earlier this year that ‘environmental problems are posing a serious threat to the building of a harmonious society, and have become a significant economic, social and political issue’”(Yang.)
In addition to harming the general landscape and decreasing the availability of habitat for both people and animals alike, the Damming of the Three Gorges has possibly caused several species native to that area to drop so low in population numbers that survival is not likely.
     Damming the Three Gorges: What Dam-Builders Don’t Want You To Know by Grainne Ryder and Margaret Barber is a whole book dedicated to the problems caused by the damming of this large and powerful body of water.  They write extensively about the near species loss of many native animals of that area of the globe.  Their list of Rare and Endangered Aquatic life is comprehensive:

“Rare and Endangered Aquatic Life
The Chinese sturgeon, cut off from its traditional spawning grounds upstream of the Three Gorges, now spawns in the rapidly flowing water 10 kilometres downstream of Gezhouba. CYJV acknowledges that sand and gravel mining planned for this area could adversely affect the sturgeon, but that the necessary studies to examine project effects on this species have not been done. It suggests that sturgeon hatcheries could be useful to replace lost spawning grounds and to minimize the impact of gas bubble disease, but it is not clear whether this cost has been included in the cost-benefit calculations. 


The Chinese river dolphin, the rarest freshwater dolphin in the world, is found only in the Yangtze’s middle and lower reaches and at the confluence of Dongting Lake. According to CYJV, there are only 200 to 300 of these dolphins remaining and the expected increase in erosion downstream of the dam could adversely affect them and the semi-natural dolphin reserves established by the Chinese authorities along the Yangtze.* The Chinese environmental impact statement did not address the impact of the Three Gorges Project on the river dolphins. CYJV recommends more studies and that all means available to conserve and protect this species be considered appropriate.

The fin-less porpoise is commonly found along harbours and bays in the coastal area and up the Yangtze into Dongting Lake. CYJV predicts that the Three Gorges Project would have little impact on the porpoises – a judgment apparently based on the assumption that the porpoises have sufficiently adapted to a wide range of environments, and would therefore adjust to the environmental change caused by the dam.

The Chinese alligator is found only in the lower reaches of the Yangtze. Only 300 to 500 of these alligators remain, inhabiting irrigation and storage ponds, rice fields and shallow depressions in low-lying plains. CYJV optimistically concludes that the impacts of the Three Gorges Project on this species would be minimal, and that the real threat to this species is ongoing harvesting at a rate that will soon cause extinction”(Barber and Ryder)

The Baji Dolphin, once native to the Yangtze River is now functionally extinct.

Although some sources will speak of a variety of other species effected, the latter are those which are threatened to the point of extinction.  Other creatures impacted by the dam include but are not limited to the Giant Panda, Siberian cranes, and the giant Chinese river Sturgeon (PBS).  This not only effects the overall biodiversity of the the planet. The loss of a species is a tragic thing, but it effects the interactions between ecological niches and can have a domino effect on the rest of a given ecosystem.  These can have wide ranging effects on a larger biosphere, because instability in individual ecosystems and communities of species effects the stability of the larger whole.
        The construction of such a monumental dam has other ecological impacts mentioned briefly before ranging from earthquakes and land slides, to the accumulation of toxins and sediments to problems with waste management.  Siltation is always a concern with any dam construction, generally, silt is suspended in the river water and travels downstream with the currents.  Setting up a dam is like putting up a road block for sediments and all there sorts of hazardous things. Factories and sewage treatment lack the determination to take care of their waste effectively, and traditionally this would end up in the Yangtze.  The combination of silt and hazardous materials leaves the Chinese government with a bigger problem than originally expected. A CNN report quotes a Chinese author and her view of the problems with Three Gorges, “‘By severing the mighty river and slowing the flow of its water, the dam will cause pollution from industrial and residential sources to concentrate in the river, rather than be flushed out at sea,’ writes Chinese journalist Jin Hui in The River Dragon Has Come! a recently published collection of criticisms against the dam. ‘The result will be a poisoned river’”(Kennedy). An article in TIME Magazine writes similarly about the environmental dangers we have encountered following the completion of the dam,. “Now, however, scientists say things are getting worse. The water quality of the Yangtze's tributaries is deteriorating rapidly, as the dammed river is less able to disperse pollutants effectively. The incidence of algae blooms has risen steadily since the reservoir was completed in 2006. The rising water is also causing rampant soil erosion, resulting in riverbank collapses and landslides along the shores of the Yangtze's tributaries. Professor Lei Hengshun, an environmentalist at Chongqing University who has devoted years to studying and preserving the Three Gorges ecosystem, says that if the water level of the reservoir reaches its planned height of 165 meters next year, it will bring tributaries of the Yangtze River under even greater environmental threat. ‘Now it's a good time to review the problems that have arisen,’ he says, ‘before a larger flooded area brings an even bigger impact on the tributaries’”(Yang).

Three Gorges Review

The Three Gorges Dam was controversial from its initiation, however its global impact was an overlooked factor which challenges the way the human race makes decisions regarding large scale infrastructure.  The Chinese chose to build this dam in their country, however, its is important to remember that water is not an immobilized resource.  We all share the worlds water supply, and decisions regarding its redirection and use should be more globally oriented and less localized, this also means that we should take other species which would be negatively effected by our actions like the flora and fauna that often don't have a voice.  Species like the Baji Dolphin shouldn't be extinct because we took away their habitat, our decisions have to encompass what not having that animal in the Yangtze ecosystem means for the rest of the river basin and surrounding species.  Hopefully, one day the population of the earth will be able to work together to come up with solutions to this problematic environmental history we are constructing, realizing the interconnectedness of our environment and working to not disregard the mesh which provides stability for the planet and all of its inhabitants, not just our anthropogenic selves.

Final Thoughts

Understanding the impacts of dams and how they individually relate to the world environment, locally and globally, is only a fraction of the reality of relationships of dams and the environment.  All over the world, dams are built, harnessing the power of our rivers and streams, while leaving a lasting footprint on our planet and its many interconnected ecosystems.  Realizing the impact that one dam can have on the systems of a region and the drainage of water into an ocean like the Yangtze and the Yellow Sea, or the Glen Canyon Dam on the Colorado that no longer reaches the ocean, illuminates the global impact these local decisions that are made around the world with all kinds of motives.  Through carefully examining very controversial dams in very different parts of the world, the similarities begin to accumulate.  The planning of these monstrous structures is surrounded by controversy and disagreement.  In both examples, many aspects in the planning and construction are overlooked, and more problems arise following their completion.  People are displaced and the ecology of the area altered so far from their original state that the land surrounding is nearly unrecognizable. History and culture, as well as spiritual retreats are lost, and our connection to the global environment and stewardship of our earth and its special places us trumped by economic gain.  Over time, these severe alterations to our landscape leads to the loss of more than just species and vegetation, but to the loss of cultural heritage, historical sites and threatens our shaky relationship with the natural world.  On the other hand, the creation of dams like the Three Gorges in China or the Glen Canyon in Colorado builds a platform for a whole new type of environmental history.  This study is an area growing in recent years, examining peoples relationships with the surrounding natural world and it's impacts on humans conversely.  Locally and globally, the human race is constructing the framework of environmental history with each passing day, dam creation just being one small piece of the project effecting the state of our entire planet.

Works Cited

Three Gorges Works Cited

Bristow, Michael. "BBC NEWS | Asia-Pacific | Deep concern over Three Gorges Dam." BBC News - Home. http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/7120856.stm (accessed February 14, 2012).

"China – Hydropower as the right solution? - Our energy." Home - Our energy. http://www.our-energy.com/china_hydropower_as_the_right_solution.html (accessed February 16, 2012).

Ford, Peter. "China's Three Gorges project: A huge dam with big troubles - CSMonitor.com." The Christian Science Monitor. http://www.csmonitor.com/World/Asia-Pacific/2011/0727/China-s-Three-Gorges-project-A-huge-dam-with-big-troubles (accessed February 14, 2012).

Frail, T.A. . "Navigating the Yangtze River | Life Lists | Smithsonian Magazine." History, Travel, Arts, Science, People, Places | Smithsonian Magazine. http://www.smithsonianmag.com/specialsections/lifelists/lifelist-yangtze-river.html#ixzz1mgRcUIXv (accessed February 20, 2012).

Kennedy, Bruce. "CNN In-Depth Specials - Visions of China - Asian Superpower: China's Three Gorges Dam." CNN.com - Breaking News, U.S., World, Weather, Entertainment & Video News. http://www.cnn.com/SPECIALS/1999/china.50/asian.superpower/three.gorges/ (accessed February 15, 2012). 

Larson , Joseph S.. "Damming The Three Gorges - Chapter Six - Downstream Environmental Impacts." Three Gorges Dam . http://www.threegorgesprobe.org/pi/documents/three_gorges/damming3g/ch06.html (accessed February 15, 2012).

PBS. "Great Wall Across the Yangtze, Three Gorges Dam." PBS: Public Broadcasting Service. http://www.pbs.org/itvs/greatwall/dam.html (accessed February 16, 2012).

Ponseti, Marta, and Jordi Lopez-Pujol. "The Three Gorges Dam Project in China:History and Consequences." http://seneca.uab.es/hmic. https://docs.google.com/viewer?a=v&q=cache:sv3fj6JaUiMJ:www.raco.cat/index.php/hmic/article/viewfile/57768/67739+spiritual+and+historical+loss+three+gorges+dam (accessed February 14, 2012).

Yang, Lin . "China's Three Gorges Dam Under Fire - TIME." TIME.com. http://www.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,1671000,00.html (accessed February 15, 2012).



Colorado River Works Cited

AlterNet, Josh Eidelson /. "Special Coverage: ENVIRONMENT | AlterNet." Home | AlterNet. http://www.alternet.org/environment/46809http:// (accessed February 17, 2012).

 
 

Cavelle, Jenna. "population displacement « ." peakwater.org. http://peakwater.org/tag/population-displacement/ (accessed February 21, 2012).

 
 

Minard, Anne. "Dams Cutting Off 400 Million People From Food and Income." Daily Nature and Science News and Headlines | National Geographic News. http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2010/06/100604-dams-economic-impact/ (accessed February 19, 2012).

 
 

"Photo Journal - Pete McBride: Chasing Water - Pictures, More From National Geographic Magazine." National Geographic Magazine. http://ngm.nationalgeographic.com/visions/field-test/chasing-water#/6 (accessed February 18, 2012).

 
 

Sleight, Ken. "Glen Canyon." KUED Channel 7 | University of Utah. http://www.kued.org/productions/glencanyon/interviews/sleight.html (accessed February 20, 2012).

 
 

Waterman, Jonathan. "River Essays." Colorado River Project. jonathanwaterman.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=category&layout=blog&id=24&Itemid=9http:// (accessed February 15, 2012).



Zielinski, Sarah. "The Colorado River Runs Dry | Science & Nature | Smithsonian Magazine." History,                   Travel, Arts, Science, People, Places | Smithsonian Magazine. http://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/The-Colorado-River-Runs Dry.html (accessed February 17, 2012).

Further Information

Links:

http://www2.grist.org/pdf/CO_River_infographic.pdf

http://jonathanwaterman.com/