Talk:Three Gorges Dam

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Good article Three Gorges Dam has been listed as one of the Engineering and technology good articles under the good article criteria. If you can improve it further, please do. If it no longer meets these criteria, you can delist it, or ask for a reassessment.
January 20, 2008 Good article nominee Listed

Contents

[edit] Calvingoa and Propaganda

Just wan't to warn you of Calvingoa who will undo edits that are not in favor of China. This article has alot of plagiarism and is biased in some aspects. I believe Wikipedia should be unbiased and not a place of propaganda. Tell Calvingoa and anyone else against anti-china or anti-dam information to stop undoing edits that make the article less biased and less in favor of its pro-chinese stance. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 76.176.211.177 (talk) 05:00, 15 May 2008 (UTC)
ref>Insert footnote text here</ref>Hi there, the environmental issue of the dam should go to the section "criticism" and the page "environmental issue related to the dam". Feel free to expand those sections and add any reliable info if you want.
The section continuous false believes of the dam is wrote it by myself. I am pretty sure you cannot find another one online anywhere else from wiki. Just make people have eccess to the most updated data about migration and power production.
If you think the info from Chinese government is not reliable, that's OK. You should talk in the talk page before you eliminate those sections. Once we reached a unanimous decision, we should edit the page.Calvingao (talk) 01:27, 16 May 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Unsound critics

Some critics in the page is too political and not relevent to the project itself. For example: "However, critics argued that increased output would not automatically mean the ease of consumption, and the reason is political. The Chinese electrical power market is monopolized by the state owned enterprises, which is the largest interest group in China because they are all run by Li Peng's relatives and close associates. With the monopoly, the price was set so high that most of the poor regions could not afford to use electricity, a fact that has already been repeated many times in many regions of China. As a result, the increased output would not bring the development in to the local area like the government has claimed, only benefit the wealthy coastal regions, further increasing the wealth disparity. Although Chinese government has recognized the problem of the monopoly of the electricity market, repeated attempts to introduce market reforms in to the electrical energy sector have all failed due to the resistance of the interest groups."

Another comment: "Critics point out that various levels of Chinese government's industrial developmental plans based on the increased power production have a fatal flaw: all of them lack sufficient pollution control plans. In fact, nearly all of the newly completed industrial sites in the region lack appropriate pollution treatment facilities and increased electricity output only worsen the problem."

Obviously, even if China did not launch the dam project, it would still need other energy source to satisfy its thirst for energy. In other words, whether or not the three gorges dam were built, the problem mentioned in those paragraphs could not be avoided. Thus, simply blame them to the dam project is unfair.

In addition, some comment is not ture. For example: "Under the order of the biggest proponent of the dam, then premier Li Peng, the cost was based on 1980's prices, with almost no inflation included in the estimate. Opposition to the dam and to the fraudulent numbers being used to promote it was willfully ignored in the report in order to ensure its passage. One of the main opponents of the dam, famous Chinese activist, Li Rui, repeatedly voiced his concerns about rigged numbers and estimates, but the pleas of Li and others fell on deaf ears. As a retired senior communist official and Mao Zedong's former secretary, Li Rui managed to evade governmental prosecution. Dai Qing was not that lucky."

However, according to a report by Xinhua News [1], the original budget (203 billion yuan) did consider the inflation. Thanks to the low inflation rate in recent years, the whole project is expected to be finished with only 180 billion yuan.

I have delete those comments. And two cents I also need to point out: first, China was in an extreme short of electricity during 2001~2004, the dam did relieve a lots to the shortage. Second, considering the 1 trillion US$ reserves held by China (= 8000 billion yuan), the three gorges dam is not so costly as some people had thought -- the Chinese government can afford it easily.

Sinolonghai 22:18, 29 November 2006 (UTC)


[edit] Billion

What kind of billion is used to refer to the investment costs? The European (million million) kind or the American (thousand million)? Plop 12:53, Apr 13, 2004 (UTC)

I would guess the American version, as this is much more widely used internationally. Also, it seems unlikely that even a dam this size would cost anyway near $1,000,000,000,000. 134.219.168.14 07:58, 13 May 2006 (UTC)

Not if it's in Zimbabwean dollar! Heilme 05:44, 19 May 2006 (UTC)
Why pay millions, when you can pay.... billions!!! 24.89.245.62 07:02, 12 June 2007 (UTC)

[edit] NPOV Dispute

Why is the neutrality of this article disputed? Stargoat 02:07, 29 Apr 2004 (UTC)

The disputed message tag was added by User:TheSeez on Feb 18. I left a message asking him or her to explain. If the user does not respond within a few days, I suggest that you simply remove the disputed message. older ≠ wiser 02:20, 29 Apr 2004 (UTC)

[edit] Potable water in Three Gorges Reservoir?

According to the plan, many cities both modern and ancient will be under water when the dam complete and the water level rises to form a reservoir. My question is how drinkable the entire river will become when city structures, such as gas stations, septic tanks, chemical factories line the bottom of a major water source of millions of people downstream. One may argue that cleanup will be performed before the flooding occured. Based on our experience with the "Superfund" clean up projects in the US, we learned that clean up is extremely expensive for area as small as one city block. But they are going to need to do similiar clean up for cities and cities. Will they do it or risk the health of billion of people? 67.170.239.52 05:58, 16 Jul 2004 (UTC)

Almost ALL the text is verbatim from the following website:

http://www.chinaonline.com/refer/ministry_profiles/threegorgesdam.asp

I dont know if that is a problem

portable water? Do you mean water that can be transported from place to place, or water that is drinkable? If the later, the correct word is "potable".--Baoluo 03:47, 27 June 2006 (UTC)

[edit] "In other words, hydro-dams are already obsolete"

In Three_Gorges_Dam#Debate_over_the_dam, the above statement hails fossil fuel electrical generation as superior to hydroelectric power. This is POV. Pud 12:50, 13 Aug 2004 (UTC)

I have removed the above paragraph. Pud 22:23, 15 Aug 2004 (UTC)

[edit] Repeated Information

Section 2 (Debate over the dam) and section 3(Summary of arguments) repeate eachother, one of these sections sould be removed. Pud 22:22, 15 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Done. Pud 22:05, 17 Aug 2004 (UTC)

The sections Construction Timetable, Funding Sources, Proposal of Project and Approval of Project also seem to be repeated.

[edit] Weasel Terms

The article goes on and on about the "defenders" and the "critics". We don't need constant disclaimers and classification of statements, the facts need to stand on their own. And they actually do, we just need to let them... --Joy [shallot]

Absolutely! And the controversy section is almost half the article. I am sensitive to the environmental dispute and think it can be more effective with a dose of brevity and clarity. Pud 01:00, 21 Aug 2004 (UTC)

[edit] Some Engineers

We need a reference for the recent addition; "Some engineers also predict that the dam will not be able to hold the pressure of the water from the reservoir. If the dam should collapse, the release of the water in the reservoir would send a massive tidal wave down the river. This tidal wave would destroy anything in its path, and kill millions of people."

Duk 14:55, 18 Nov 2004 (UTC)

I hope my addition on your talk page will be sufficient. Cyrloc 02:33, 19 Nov 2004 (UTC)

(per Cyrloc, This article can be found at The Damming of the Yangtze River.) Duk 15:17, 19 Nov 2004 (UTC)


Also, would really like to see a usage chart of how the water of the dam is planned to be used. Sgt. Grunty 18:06, 3 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Three gorge dam is the biggest but not the highest. There are several dams in the world which are higher than 200m compare to 170m of the three gorge. With the help of engineers from the west and chinese engineers' own experience, the dam is strong enough to hold the water, that's not a problem.Calvingao 20:10, 23 April 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Navigation: Size of vessels that can pass through the locks

 Please help improve this article or section by expanding it.
Further information might be found on the talk page or at requests for expansion. (January 2007)

There is a panamax and a seawaymax, so what is the wuhanmax? What are the dimensions of the ship lift? How long will it take to ascend and descend through the locks? How long will it take to ascend and descend on the ship lift? Will it be possible to use the locks before the basin is full? How long is it expected to tak to fill the basin?

The basin is expected to be full in 2009. -- Beland 20:21, 29 January 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Political Issue

What is the political risk occur on the three gorges dam project?

[edit] Relocation not mentioned?

The article says nothing or very little about the relocation of 1.2 million people in thousands of villages, towns and cities that have existed for thousands of years. Im not too enlightened on the subject but it appears to be a major controversy because no dam has ever relocated so many people.

Go to http://www.irn.org/programs/threeg/resettle.html

I came here to make just this point. Much more is needed on resettlement. I think that many will agree that resettlement presents the greatest difficulty of this entire project. 71.105.98.198 00:25, 1 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] plagiarism & npov

The content of this article is copied almost verbatim from this website: [2]

As any 14-year-old who's done a book report knows, just because it's listed in the "References" doesn't give you the right to copy it word-for-word and pass it off as your own. This is called "plagiarism". Not only that, but the website in question is in blatant opposition to the dam, so its quite likely that this anti-dam bias has carried over to the Wikipedia article. A precursory glance tells me that not only has the bias from the original website been carried over, more has been added. For example, the only mention of the sluice gates designed to prevent siltation is "sluice gates that many people believe will be ineffective". Who says they will be ineffective? "Many"? I checked the article's references and I could find no mention of this.

This project is major news, and it deserves a better article than this. And considering the controversy involved, it needs CITATIONS. I'm marking this article as NPOV. If anyone can speak Chinese, the Chinese-language version is a featured article. Try translating that. Bueller 007 01:20, 24 April 2006 (UTC)

I'm removing the NPOV tag because your complaint above is not about NPOV. It's about crappy citations and quality of the article. I'll replace the NPOV tag with the citations-complaint tag. Tempshill 06:17, 24 April 2006 (UTC)

That's why the neutrality of this article is disputed.Calvingao 20:15, 23 April 2007 (UTC)

[edit] History of the flooding

I thought the lower Yangtze has suffered severe flooding every decade, on average, for thousands of years, but this is contradicted by this sentence in the article:

Probe International asserts that the dam does not address the real source of flooding, which is the loss of forest cover in the Yangtze watershed and the loss of 13,000 km² of lakes (which had greatly helped to alleviate floods) due to siltation, reclamation and uncontrolled development.

Can someone knowledgeable mention at that point in the article whether the flooding has demonstrably been worse over the last decades? Tempshill 06:16, 24 April 2006 (UTC)

As far as I know, no major flood after 1998. After the 1998 flood, Chinese goverment decided to ban forest logging and tried to recover lakes. It seems this policy works.


==============================

Flooding of the Yangtze goes back to 2000 years, and has historically killed hundreds of thousands of people, particularly when the country was unable to get organised to regularly control the Yangtze. The authors of the above paragraph, and the one who posted it to Wiki, doesn't know history at all, and as such I am deleting the paragraph.

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/flood/deluge.html http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/2207324.stm http://aboutgaoyou.com/history_pages/9_1931floods2.htm —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 70.55.55.108 (talk) 23:48:05, August 18, 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Generation capacity

"26 generators (with a combined generating capacity of 18.2 million kW) will be able to generate 84.7 billion kWh electricity annually". These two figures don't really agree:

  • 84.7 billion kWh/year
  • = 0.232 billion kWh/day
  • = 232 million kWh/day
  • = 9.67 million kWh/hour
  • = 9.67 million kW

.. which is (roughly) half the "combined generating capacity of 18.2 million kW". Does this mean that the generators only average 50% of power capacity? Or is that figrue in error? (The figure for annual energy seems to be correct - see [3]). Tompw 13:55, 11 May 2006 (UTC)

maybe the generators are only 50% efficient. Who knows. Good call though. Heilme 05:54, 19 May 2006 (UTC)
I also question the output of 18.2 million kW. 18.2 million kw is the same as 18200 MW. According to the article the dam is to provide 10% of China's power at the time of design and 3% when actually in service. Does the plant actually produce this amount of electricity? Ontario, Canada has a record use of around 26 000 MW during the peak period during summer. If the Dam produces the figure stated, it would produce 70% of the peak needed in Ontario. Meaning that China has a peak load of 620 000 MW! To put this in perspective, China just put on line 2 new nuclear reactors at ~600 MW net. They would need 1033 reactors to carry peak load. This is probaly more than the total in the world.

As to the capacity factor, no plant runs at 100% due to maintenance and Hydro plants are reliant on the weather. If it don't rain or snow, the water level upstream of the dam will lower and cause derating.

Again the capacity of the three gorge dam project is not 18,200MW any more. It has the capacity of 22,500MW, which include 14 generator in the left side of the dam and 12 generators in the right side of the dam and 6 additional generators in the underground power station, each of them has the capacity of 700MW, plus 2 generators of 50MW to support the whole power station in case there is a power failure of the dam. So the total capacity is 22,500MW.

Ontario's normal peak power consumption is about 20,000MW. That's true, if the three gorge dam is in full power, it can support the whole Ontario.

The generators are built by world top companies like Alstone (EDIT: Alstom), GE, Siemens ect. So there is no doubt that they are the best ones in the world right now. The efficiency are all over 90%. The reason why the annual power production is so low compare to the capacity is as follows. First, Yangtze river is a seasonal river. In summer it can have a flow of 60,000m^3 /s, in winter, it can go as low as 4,000m^3/s. So in winter, it is not designed be full powered.Second, in the summer, in order to leave room to the floor control and have less precipitant, it will lower the water level to 156m, which will generate less power by same amount of water than when the water level is at 175m.Calvingao 20:31, 23 April 2007 (UTC)

China has 40 times bigger population than Canada has. Last summer, China's peak load about 600GW,and will grow to about 700GW in 2007. The three gorge dam can support about a little over 2% of China's electricity consumption right now. China's anual power consumption is about 2834.4TWh in 2006. In another words, three gorge dam will produce about 2.9% of the electricity consumption in China when it's completed..Calvingao 20:41, 23 April 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Generation numbers still sound wrong

The Itaipu dam has something like 14.5 GW capacity and produces around 95 TWh per year, and this dam is going to have a capacity of 22.5 GW and yet we are saying that expected annual production will be around 85 TWh???? I know that the capacity factor for dams is different depending on a host of factors, but this is a HUGE difference. It seems odd that they would be installing that much capacity if they weren't expecting more generation.

And I put in the graph of the total electricity use. Just to clarify, this doesn't look like it would be any 10% of the total even if it worked at 100% all of the time. It'll be a blip... maybe... actually you might not even be able to see it on that graph (after it's finished). -Theanphibian (talk • contribs) 05:17, 14 October 2007 (UTC)

Here is my two cents. Three major factors could skew the capacity to actual generation ratio: nights, flood control and navigation. Power consumption drops significantly at night, thus power generation. China is notorious of energy inefficiency, therefore, it might be safe to assume that the country's off-peak consumption is significantly imbalanced comparing to industrialized nations. Flood control, as others have mentioned elsewhere, is another factor. Water diversion has been intensified along the Yangtze River in recent years, thus, much lower flux in the dry season. The dam needs to guarantee that 5,000t boats can reach Chongqing year around.--68.107.4.76 09:43, 26 October 2007 (UTC)

wow, that's a lot of factors that go into it. Still, it seems to me that the meaning of the 22.5 GW figure is that it will be mostly a peaking plant. Do you think that's true? -Theanphibian (talk • contribs) 07:06, 28 October 2007 (UTC)
Do you have any reliable source confirming capacity of 22,500MW? Most of sources still reports 18,200 MW. What is the correct figure? Beagel (talk) 07:35, 13 January 2008 (UTC)
This is the difference between what it is and what it will be. However, after the December additions, I'm not so sure the 18,200 is at this very second correct. -Theanphibian (talk • contribs) 16:52, 13 January 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Sizes missing

Strangely enough, the dam sizes are missing from the article's first paragraph.. I think it is something like 186 meters high, 2350 meters wide. Does anyone have the numbers? Gil_mo 22:04, 23 May 2006 (UTC)

Yep, just got it in my Geography class...it's 612 feet high (dunno how many metres),1.3 miles long (the dam), 400 miles of resevoir (as long as the Grand Canyon). METALFREAK04 (talk) 10:25, 1 February 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Time of compeletion

The three gorge dam is supposed to complete in 2009. But with the additional project such as the underground power plant and the delay of the ship lifter, it won't complete until 2011. But the chinese government will probably still announce the completion of the project in 2009 or even in 2008 because the rest of the project is so small and negligable compare to the whole project.Calvingao 20:59, 23 April 2007 (UTC)

[edit] endangered species

There is a lot of criticism about three gorge dam is based on it's impact on the endangered species. Actually, it is not the three gorge dam changed the habitat of those endangered fishes. There is a dam just 50 km downstream of the three gorge dam called Gezhouba dam, which doesn't have fish latters. So it's unfair to blame three gorge dam just because it's the world largest one.Calvingao 21:10, 23 April 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Effect on earths axis

According to the discovery channel, the lake behind the dam will be so heavy that it will actually adjust the axis of the earth such that each day will be slightly longer. Can anyone find a verifiable web reference for this statement? --mitrebox 16:37, 25 May 2006 (UTC)

That effect is probably not significant; this isn't that big a lake. The melting of the polar icecaps is a bigger deal, because that moves sizable water from the poles towards the equator, which increases the earth's moment of inertia. This is monitored by the Earth Rotation Service. --John Nagle 17:19, 25 May 2006 (UTC)
The northern ice cap floats. It won't move any more mass to the equator, just as it won't increase sea levels. We'll have to wait for Greenland and Antarctica to melt for that to happen. It will affect the salinity though. -Theanphibian (talk • contribs) 07:08, 28 October 2007 (UTC)

He's probably right though that there will be an effect. The real question is how big of one. I mean jumping up and down WILL affect the rotation of the earth just not by an amount we can sense, but a 22 billion ton lake I bet will have an effect we can pick up on. Though not because it's a big effect, but just because we're damn good at detecting little changes. --Reyals 20:50, 23 June 2006 (UTC)

According to this, all the dams built around the world have together shortened the day by maybe a thousandth of a second by moving water away from the equator, letting the Earth spin a tiny bit faster with a little less mass to move at its widest part. The Discovery Channel probably just mentioned the reservoir effect because it sounds impressive. Overall, and especially applied to a single dam, it's pretty irrelevant. --Mr. Billion 06:10, 1 July 2006 (UTC)

[edit] This article needs a cleanup...

I've been reading this article, and I've been reading some sentences like "Huge reservoirs by their nature..." and "...approximately 95% currently winter in wetlands that will be destroyed by the Three Gorges Dam." . Yeah, this article really needs help. Abby724 23:04, 18 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] NPOV

This article in general is highly negative towards the project and fails to cite it's sources for a number of critical passages. Here's an example:

"However, critics argued that increased output would not automatically mean the ease of consumption, and the reason is political. The Chinese electrical power market is monopolized by the state owned enterprises, which is the largest interest group in China because they are all run by Li Peng's relatives and close associates. With the monopoly, the price was set so high that most of the poor regions could not afford to use electricity, a fact that has already been repeated many times in many regions of China. As a result, the increased output would not bring the development in to the local area like the government has claimed, only benefit the wealthy coastal regions, further increasing the wealth disparity. Although Chinese government has recognized the problem of the monopoly of the electricity market, repeated attempts to introduce market reforms in to the electrical energy sector have all failed due to the resistance of the interest groups."

One would think that such a sweeping statement would be supported in some fashion. Sadly it's not. This part should probably be removed.

Remove it on sight. This kind of childish ignorance is what caused 1.4 billion people to be unaccessible to Wikipedia. Aran|heru|nar 13:08, 14 October 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Photoshopped picture

Picture "Three Gorges Dam, upstream side, 26 July 2004" looks heavilly photoshopped, best seen at the "shifting" telephone / electricity mast

That is photoshoped for sure, can someone remove this?

It is photoshopped only in the sense that it has been stitched together from a series of photographs to form a panorama, which, the last time I checked, is still an allowable action.

[edit] Lifespan reuqest

Official and (various groups) predictions are both missing, though they look like they were there once supposed to be in the flood section. Can anyone fix this? mr_happyhour 29/01/07

[edit] Is this viable in the long term

The article is written well however it only touches on the problems lightly. The fact of the matter is you have a area of the world that floods every ten years. The last flooding was in 1998. The project was finished in 2006...it IS on a fault line. Therefore the countdown exists as to actually "testing" it. Don't act like this thing will last because the vast majority of projects in the world that involve forcing water in given directions don't work in the long run. Look at Libyas great man made river project and look at Boston's Big dig.

Until a system is actually tested it should not impress well upon people. Also to note the pressure will be on the PRC next year not only on this but because of the fact they are going to host the Olympics potentially at the same time. If this project collapses we're talking death and destruction on a massive scale. Picture Hurricane Katrinas damage to New Orleans but on a regional scale for a country and with a population at least fifty fold higher....

I think what you said make sense, but that is still POV. We can't possibly write about a disaster that MIGHT happen. Very much like no one dare write about a possible hurricane in New Orlean that MIGHT kill thousands of people. If it happens, then it wouldn't be a problem. But as of right now, it would be speculation. Also, please sign your post. Yongke 01:15, 5 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Less Unofficial Estimate

Please use less unofficial estimate in this artical.Although China is still undercontrol of communism party, it's statistics is pretty reliable. Some of the numbers like the costs of the project and how many people have to be relocated are unlikely to be altered. Those unofficial estimates maybe have it's own way to get the data. But the data produced by modern chinese statistics agency and the TGP company have a firm base and is responsalbe for the centrol government. We should trust them unless the unofficial estimate has a very clear way of gathering data and using the data.Calvingao 06:07, 1 May 2007 (UTC)

[edit] who has submitted the article???

Dear all i was really interasted to read an article about the three gorges dam, but actually what i found on wikipedia, it was an pro-american(anti-chinese) propaganda. I fully understand that Americans deem themselves the "best" country and they don't like to admit that Chinese with their "comunistic" regime may outrun them in the area of building the biggest dam. i also looked through the link to Hover dam , where none of the aspects that were reviewed in Three Gorges Dam were mentioned. Doesn't it seem ridiculous that nobody is concerned whether the electricity that hover dam is giving covers 4 or less percent of the US electricity demand. or the same greenhouse effect. i would say that the current article might be considered not informative but critical concerning the project. because when you read the article you get info only about the "bad" part of project. Thank you —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 62.89.1.2 (talk) 09:28, 11 March 2007 (UTC).

Normal. Aran|heru|nar 04:14, 27 April 2007 (UTC)
A trend you can find on this Wikipedia or any decent reference for that matter is that old topics are not controversial. The United States could not build a dam on this scale today period. Political pressures are too great and megaprojects just don't have public support like they used to (except places like China where the leaders have the option of greatly ignoring resistance). Also, the Hoover dam was built in the desert - didn't displace any 3 million people. With both projects there were huge drawbacks as well as advantages. Anyone who writes with a specifically anti-Chinese or anti-American is an idiot, but taking the presence of large amounts of criticism in this article as an anti-Chinese disposition is not very smart either. -Theanphibian (talk • contribs) 21:37, 2 January 2008 (UTC)

That's true. There are plenty of criticism about this dam. Much of them are just showing some angry without reliable research. I'm going to fix this article in the future by referencing Hoove Dam and Itaipu Dam. I will try to add more good side of the dam and eliminate those criticism which are not reliable.But I will keep the rest which tells the real story about the dam. Calvingao 05:48, 1 May 2007 (UTC)

It's "Hoover". Not "hover" or "Hoove". Just wanted to point that out. - (I'll sign later) —Preceding unsigned comment added by 206.252.74.48 (talk) 20:55, 2 January 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Relocation of people

The number of relocation of people is about 1.2 million to 1.3 million. It's not as big as 1.9 million as some westen media reported. For sure lot's of problems occured in relocating people, but if you want to cut the greenhouse gas emission and enjoy renewable energy,that's the problem you have to deal with.Calvingao 20:52, 23 April 2007 (UTC)

What happened to the small blurb on the significant increase in the amount of people needing to be resettled? I only mention this because it's still being linked to from the news feed on the main page. I find the timing of this... removal of information quite interesting given it happened right as the 17th national ccp convention is going on. Any thoughts on why it was removed? Kyle.dionneclark 16:47, 15 October 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Edits

There have been a number of edits but no one has tackled some of the neutrality issues. It could be a great article. Good pics. --Stormbay 17:26, 17 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Can I use chinese sources

I can read chinese.My first language is Chinese. So can I use some artical in Chinese as sources? Because sometimes sources about this dam in detail is rare in English.Calvingao 06:12, 1 May 2007 (UTC)

You can. It does not matter what language the sources are in. Mlewan 10:36, 20 May 2007 (UTC)
Technical specifications in particular are great to get from more direct and often non-English sources because there's not anything disputable about them. -Theanphibian (talk • contribs) 21:40, 2 January 2008 (UTC)

[edit] This article has been substantially vandalized

I restored the navigation section, which I worked hard on, about a year ago. But the vandalism occurred so long ago it is difficult to extricate, because other people seem to have made meaningful contributions, since then, and reverting to an older, prevandalism version will wipe them out. Geo Swan 06:37, 23 April 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Sourcing

I'm making minor improvements to syntax, but I notice that many claims are not well-sourced. I'll give people some time to source, but I'll probably come back in a week and knock out anything that's not backed up.--Nick 00:51, 30 April 2007 (UTC)

[edit] "Criticism" section aren't criticising

Kinda more "apologetic"-like. Can we at least get some citations? And how about the ather side of the argument? 124.82.13.154 10:19, 29 May 2007 (UTC)

It seem like good old criticism to me. In fact, I think most of it is unwarranted consider they are problems for other dams too. More in fact, the dams that are already built on the same river suffer exactly the same type of problems on a smaller scale, and they survived. So I don't know why you might say it's "apologetic", except for being a POV troll. Also, yes I do think we should add both side of the argument like you suggested, the Chinese government's side that is! Since this whole section is pretty much one sided without pointing out what the government's response to such criticism or concerns are. No offense, but this is such a typical Wikipediaism! 24.89.245.62 06:46, 12 June 2007 (UTC)
I feel the criticism section should be renamed to something like "Impact & Controversy" which is a similar heading to the chinese version of the page. Additionally, I'd suggest translating portions of that section that are missing from the English language version. It's on my list of things to translate (right now a short list). The Government Controversy section, specifically could add some useful information from the Chinese government's side. Stevendaniels88 03:02, 10 July 2007 (UTC)

[edit] "Cost of the Dam" Section

The Cost of the Dam section is problematic because the first subsection actually deals with the monetary cost and the following subsections address the cost in a more symbolic sense, as in the "cost of living a life of crime." When we say that we don't mean the checkbook of a criminal, we mean the drawbacks and downside of living such a life.

For that reason, I'm going to move the information on $$ into the introductory paragraph, move the information on drawbacks and downsides into criticism, and delete the "Cost of the Dam" section altogether.

--Kangaru99 12:51, 12 June 2007 (UTC)

[edit] POV tag

I think the article has come a long way in the last couple of months, and I'm going to remove the POV tags (aka the "neutrality is disputed" tags). The article seems neutral to me. Its more controversial claims have been verified or deleted. Specific complaints made on this talk page have been resolved. Of course, people may still feel that the article is not neutral, in which case they should re-tag it. But if you do this please also explain your reasons on the talk page, so we can do more to improve the article. --Kangaru99 13:12, 12 June 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Potential infobox?

User:Theanphibian/foreign dam infoboxes - copied from Japanese version. Just an FYI. -Theanphibian (talk • contribs) 18:56, 4 August 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Impact on Ecosystem

I have removed the first three sentences in this section.

"Chinese officials admitted in September 2007 that without preventative measures, the Three Gorges Project will result in an environmental "catastrophe".[21] The reservoirs of water created by dams alter the ecosystem and threaten certain species. The Chinese River Dolphin is already "functionally extinct".[22] The Chinese paddlefish is on the edge of extinction and will lose habitat and suffer divided populations (leading to post-zygotic speciation) due to dams such as this. "

The first sentence makes reference to an article which is almost certainly an Internet fabrication. No where can this explosive admission be found anywhere on than on an obscure English site. Within this piece, there is a link to an article by the same author (about rats) which is even more clearly fabricated. It reads like a piece from The Onion, yet is apparently intended to be taken seriously. Both articles quote mainstream British papers but make no links.

The second sentence makes reference to an article which does not even claim that The Gorges Dam has had anything to do with the state of the Chinese River Dolphin. The third makes vague claims about post-zygotic speciation will affect the paddlefish. Both species have been in danger of extinction since long before the dam was even started; the primary reason in both cases was overfishing.

The rest of section raises valid concerns.

Abegweut Abegweut 15:33, 1 October 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Serious NPOV issues

The current article makes little sense in any aspect except for humor, and the ridiculous accusations are so repetitive that they actually sound dull, despite their absurdity. Most of the contributors who bother to come to the talk page seemed to have seen the problem, but the situation isn't getting any better. Every now and then a sinophobic wanders to this article and pretty much deletes everything he want and replacing them with pseudoscientific arguments with the sense of a third-grader. For one, simple matter, dams don't cause "environmental catastrophes" by pollution. This article is what is being polluted. Aran|heru|nar 13:23, 14 October 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Area?

According to the article:

"The project will flood 632 square kilometers (395 square miles) of land to create a reservoir about 644 kilometers (400 miles) long by 112 kilometers (70 miles) wide."

These figures don't make sense to me. According to my caclulations, if the reservoir were rectangular, these dimensions would give an area of 72,128 square km. Even halving that to allow for odd shapes, that's still a couple orders of magnitude greater than 632 sq. km. What's up? Applejuicefool 16:04, 15 October 2007 (UTC) This is a good point of the project. It doesn't flood as much area as other megadams. The reservior is over 600km long when the water level is at 175km. However, since it is called the three goeges dam, the reservoir has lot's of narrow gorges where you increase the water level, it doesn't flood much. It is like a V shape river, not a broad U shape one.By the way, I don't trust those figures appears in mass media, they are not written by geologists.198.166.255.196 05:13, 16 October 2007 (UTC)


So are you saying that the shape of the reservoir is irregular enough to reduce the area from 72 THOUSAND square km to just 632? Try as I might, I can not wrap my head around what that reservoir would look like. It would have to be mostly just a little stream! Is that what we're talking about? Applejuicefool 13:17, 19 October 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Numbers don't fit

"The project will flood 632 square kilometers (395 square miles) of land to create a reservoir about 644 kilometers (400 miles) long by 112 kilometers (70 miles) wide.[1]" i.e. its area will be 644 x 112 = 72128 sq. km - not 632 ???? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 128.139.226.37 (talk) 16:33, 15 October 2007 (UTC)

Hmm...I never would have noticed that. Applejuicefool 16:36, 15 October 2007 (UTC)

First, if those number make sense, your argue will be valid. However, the width of the reservior various a lot along the river, and it is not even close to a square, so it make no sense to do a square approximation. In addition, the river has lot's of branchs, talking about the width of the reservior doesn't make any sense. If it is 112 km wide, it will be much more visible in the satellite image than the one show in the article.Calvingao 05:18, 16 October 2007 (UTC)

According to the China Three Gorges Development Corporation's official site[4]: The reservoir is more than 600 km in length and 1.1 km in average width. The reservoir's surface area is 1084 sq km. --68.107.4.76 09:28, 26 October 2007 (UTC)

Could this be a typo in the article, instead of 112 km it should be 1.12 km? Applejuicefool 16:07, 29 October 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Picture repository

These are the best images I know of on the Commons, they may come in handy:

Three Gorges Dam, downstream side

Construction of main dam including cranes

Upstream side before filling

Inside a lock of the Three Gorges Dam

Locks under construction (view from above)

Model of dam:

Spillway view

Ship locks

South dam

-Theanphibian (talk • contribs) 22:48, 13 January 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Introduction is bad

The introductory few paragraphs have been stuffed with so many numbers that the words are in danger of being squeezed out of existence. The introduction of an article is not the place to post every statistic in existence on a topic. I don't know anything about this dam, so I'll let someone else decide which of these numbers to pull out. Or, alternatively, I could just pull 90% of the numbers out and at least it would read better. --Xyzzyplugh 02:42, 3 November 2007 (UTC)

I see that someone has de-numbered the intro. Good work. --Xyzzyplugh 15:50, 7 November 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Reuters

There's a Reuters article (http://www.reuters.com/article/newsOne/idUSPEK6744820071114) about the dam that has useful information, but the article needs major cleanup first. Superm401 - Talk 11:52, 18 November 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Insisting on errors

I tried to fix some clearly wrong information, but it was reverted:

Reservoir capacity is 39 cubic km OR 39 billion cubic meters; NOT 39 million cubic km!

1 cu km = 1 billion cu meters (1 km = 1000 meters; 1 square km = 1,000,000 square meters; 1 cubic km = 1,000,000,000 cubic meters)


Also, Catchment area = 1 million square km NOT 1083 square km. RESERVOIR area = 1083 sq km.

Catchment area is area within which rain fall flows into reservoir; NOT the surface area of the reservoir's lake!

68.12.168.97 (talk) 05:20, 20 December 2007 (UTC)

Suggest you make the changes again, pointing to the talk in your edit summary. --NeilN talk ♦ contribs 16:36, 20 December 2007 (UTC)

[edit] GA or FA attempt

Hey, I was just reading this article over and I noticed that it has improved much since I last looked at it. I think that the size is about perfect, the organization is really great, and it seems to present all sides of the issue well. There are lots of great images on the Commons, and I just went through and tried to improve the article a bit more with them.

It's still a B article right now, but I think it there are enough eyes looking at the article and it could pass a GA review with flying colors. Wikipedia is not a crystal ball, so projects under construction usually are not good candidates, but with the completions this month, it would seem that most of the important stuff is already finished, and the importance of the topic is indisputable. I may research the process and start a GA review soon. Note that this attained FA status in Vietnamese a while ago. -Theanphibian (talk • contribs) 23:24, 29 December 2007 (UTC)

Added to the WP:GAN.Beagel (talk) 09:40, 1 January 2008 (UTC)


[edit] Good article nomination on hold

This article's Good Article promotion has been put on hold. During review, some issues were discovered that can be resolved without a major re-write. This is how the article, as of January 13, 2008, compares against the six good article criteria:

1. Well written?: Pass
2. Factually accurate?: There are still some unsourced statements. Here are some examples:
  • The total electric generating capacity of the dam will reach 22,500 megawatts,
  • The dam was originally envisioned by Sun Yat-sen in The International Development of China in 1919.
  • During the planning stages in the 1990s, it was estimated that 1.13 million residents would be forced to relocate.
  • The total capacity of those four dams is 38,500 MW, almost double the capacity of the Three Gorges.
Basically, any statistic or potentially controversial statement should be cited.
3. Broad in coverage?: Pass
4. Neutral point of view?: Pass
5. Article stability? Pass
6. Images?: Pass

This is an excellent article with great potential. My main (and perhaps only) concern is the shortage of references; be sure to cite any fact that isn't "obvious."

Please address these matters soon and then leave a note here showing how they have been resolved. After 48 hours the article should be reviewed again. If these issues are not addressed within 7 days, the article may be failed without further notice. Thank you for your work so far. King of ♥ ♦ ♣ ♠ 05:32, 13 January 2008 (UTC)


GA review (see here for criteria)
  1. It is reasonably well written.
    a (prose): b (MoS):
  2. It is factually accurate and verifiable.
    a (references): b (citations to reliable sources): c (OR):
  3. It is broad in its coverage.
    a (major aspects): b (focused):
  4. It follows the neutral point of view policy.
    Fair representation without bias:
  5. It is stable.
    No edit wars etc.:
  6. It is illustrated by images, where possible and appropriate.
    a (images are tagged and non-free images have fair use rationales): b (appropriate use with suitable captions):
  7. Overall:
    Pass/Fail:

King of ♥ ♦ ♣ ♠ 05:32, 13 January 2008 (UTC)

Needs a better lead too. I wish people would read the guidelines. Three paragraphs would be a minimum here, probably even four.

[edit] References

For the GA status, the article needs better references. I put "citation needed" tag in places, where inline references are needed. Please help to find and add these missing references.Beagel (talk) 08:14, 13 January 2008 (UTC)

I have only one big question about those. Do the appearances in books really need citations? It is easy, as I have found, to simply look it up, find a review and verify the occurrence. But then are we going to put the review down as a reference? Wouldn't the proper thing to do be to reference the book itself? Then isn't putting this reference a trivial act? -Theanphibian (talk • contribs) 16:23, 13 January 2008 (UTC)
By my understanding it's better to reference the book itself. Of course, in this case you need all information about book, including exact page numbers of citation.Beagel (talk) 16:55, 13 January 2008 (UTC)
Like I was saying, it's within my abilities to verify if it occurred in the book or not. It probably will not be within my capabilities to find information like exact citations within the book. I might could leave a message to the editors who added them, but that's about all. -Theanphibian (talk • contribs) 22:06, 13 January 2008 (UTC)
Great work so far. I'll try to add a few refs myself. Keep it up! -- King of ♥ ♦ ♣ ♠ 06:07, 15 January 2008 (UTC)
Promoted. -- King of ♥ ♦ ♣ ♠ 01:26, 20 January 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Yangtze river dolphin

It says in the article that the dolphin will be negatively affected. Already happened, declared extinct. Hope someone else cares enough to change the article please. I am not wikieducated enough and get yelled at when I try and change stuff and it just gets changed back. Here is a reference. http://www.bbc.co.uk/worldservice/learningenglish/newsenglish/witn/2007/08/070808_china_dolphin.shtml 71.217.137.120 (talk) 01:38, 28 January 2008 (UTC)Adam

You're right. The reason it used that wording is that we don't want to make any statements beyond what can conservatively be said the references state. And in fact, I was confused earlier about the different names and wasn't sure if it was the same organism that is now extinct - it appears it is. I edited it, but still tried to balance the wording. If you look at the Baiji article, it attributes the main cause to fishing and doesn't talk much about the dam. It isn't disputed that the dam contributed, but the events that caused it to happen took place over the last 60 or so years, so the dam's effect was like the last nail in the coffin.
Please tell me if my understanding isn't right, thanks! -Theanphibian (talk • contribs) 03:56, 28 January 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Current Project

I want to put a template saying that this is an ongoing project, information may change rapidly. Because there are still lot's of sources in English and Chinese saying that the total generating capacity is 18.2 GW.Who knows how to do it, please help me.Calvingao (talk) 01:23, 31 January 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Map needed

This article seriously needs a map of the dam area itself, showing all the relevant locks, dam faces, and hydropower infrastructure.

Anyone up to it? 121.108.242.207 (talk) 02:16, 31 January 2008 (UTC)

Map: I think it would be yes, but firstly the imformation in some parts is wrong. I have just watched a video about it and none of the information on here is the same. I know the video could be old but I think it is still vital to compare the old information to the new and resite figures. a.k.a the construction of the dam will be fully capable for 2009? not 2011...

Anyway, I have a link http://www.mtholyoke.edu/~lpohara/Pol%20116/Images/map3.jpg if someone can put that up, it be good...and have another section of "Site of Gorges dam" or something describing it and how many villages (4,000), towns (114) and cities (13)...it will submerge when the resevoir is built. METALFREAK04 (talk) 10:20, 1 February 2008 (UTC)

[edit] GA stus after article split

I split off a section into a Environmental issues with the Three Gorges Dam article and left a summary. There is some concern that it will affect the GA status. See Talk:Environmental issues with the Three Gorges Dam. -- Alan Liefting- (talk) - 20:24, 28 February 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Spelling

fixed link --AndyCook (talk) 13:32, 16 April 2008 (UTC)

[edit] umm what? (Generator installation progress)

In the “Generator installation progress” it says The sixth generator in the south side (No. 17) started working on December 27, 2007.

But then later it says The seventh generator in the south side (No. 17) started working on December 18, 2007.


maybe i missed something, but... --AndyCook (talk) 13:44, 16 April 2008 (UTC)

I see nothing to indicate this would be wrong. The numbers are generally given by when the decision was made, when construction was started, or physically where they are. It's not uncommon at all for a power station to have n-1 generator to come online before n generator. I'm not having much luck searching for something to back this up, but generally speaking, there shouldn't be real cause for suspicion. -Theanphibian (talk • contribs) 14:47, 8 June 2008 (UTC)

[edit] "Contentious Beliefs about the Three Gorges Dam Project" isn't encyclopedic

IMHO the section of contentious beliefs looks like a trivia section, and it is also quite futile. Even though there might be a belief that "More than 4 million people have to be relocated due to the dam." oslt, I still oppose these kind of argument-refuting sections simply because the article itself should state the correct values and information, and if it does, there is no need for these kind of "explanatory corrections". There might be, if there was a serious debate going on about some information, but even in that case it shouldn't be so one-sided (it should state the arguments from both sides). Another thing that I want to point out in the article is that sections like enviromental impacts should not be merged with this article, simply because the article is very long as it is and it should be broken down into smaller and easier to read articles. --piksi (talk) 16:28, 19 May 2008 (UTC)
You are right. But I think there are still a lot of misconseptions about those issues, as simple as how many generators or what's its max capacity, how much % electricity can it produce in China.Calvingao (talk) 02:10, 20 May 2008 (UTC)

I completely agree that the section is too much of 'trivia'. There are some things in it that are referenced and probably wouldn't hurt to cover in the article, but it probably needs to be reorganized into the rest of the article and be pruned of the things that are not referenced.
The environmental effects article has been entertaining the merge discussion, and I think that now an administrator needs to go declare the vote over and take action (if needed). -Theanphibian (talk • contribs) 14:49, 8 June 2008 (UTC)

[edit] “The Three Gorges Dam caused the Sichuan earthquake.”

The title says the three gorges dam caused the Sichuan earthquake but then goes to disprove however there are no citations for any of the information which has been put? Any chance whoever added it can put their source with it?

Please can people cite their additions because articles loose their value if you dont.

<<Dave>> 14:27, 26 May 2008 (UTC) I agree with you and I myself didn't hear a lot of news saying that Three Gorges Dam coursed the earth quake.Calvingao (talk) 16:07, 26 May 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Sedimentation should be moved into "Environmental issues with the Three Gorges Dam"

Because it is a kind of environmental issue. Do you think so?Calvingao (talk) 16:13, 26 May 2008 (UTC)

As it currently stands it is more of an economic argument than environmental. -- Alan Liefting (talk) - 23:15, 29 May 2008 (UTC)