Nations build a dam to take away water AWAY from millions of people. They build a dam to pretend to BRING water to millions of people. Who are these gods that govern us? Is there no limit to their powers?
By Nazarul Islam | USA
Imagine the pride of Chinese masses when they achieved the world’s greatest engineering feat in 2012 after they completed ‘The Three Gorges Dam’. They built the world’s largest hydroelectric power station located on the Yangtze River in Hubei, China, having a generating capacity of 22,500 MW. This colossal dam continues to serve multiple purposes, including flood control, electricity generation, and improving navigation on the Yangtze. Construction had commenced in 1994 and was largely completed in eighteen years.
A major objective of this life changing human endeavor focused on the control of natural disasters that recurred frequently in the shape of floods, historically affecting millions of people. Ironically, after its completion it is now threatening Chinese rare wildlife, its ancient national monuments and the natural environment which the country has tried to reshape. China’s rush to attain the impossible mega projects of public benefits, has raised some very pertinent questions. Has the Chinese government struck the right balance in creating the Three Gorges Dam? In all wisdom, what could be colossal tragedies resulting from unintended human errors, that could possibly lead to its potential collapse?
More than likely, Three Gorges Dam failure would result in catastrophic flooding downstream, inundating major cities like Wuhan and Nanjing. The sudden release of millions of cubic meters of water would overwhelm existing flood control measures and lead to widespread destruction and loss of life. The economic impact would be enormous, disrupting supply chains and potentially affecting China’s food production.
Imagine what the Chinese have created in their massive engineering project. This is something so huge that it can gently push the entire planet off balance. That’s exactly what this colossal dam in China has done—shifting Earth’s rotation axis by nearly an inch and subtly lengthening our days. This might sound like science fiction, but it’s real, verified by NASA and experts studying the planet’s delicate movements.
Between 1994 and 2012, the Three Gorges Dam transformed the Yangtze River into a massive reservoir containing roughly 39.3 billion cubic meters (about 10 trillion gallons) of water. Experts at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center have reported that the weight of the project has physically shifted Earth’s rotation axis by nearly two centimeters—roughly three-quarters of an inch.
Though two centimeters may seem tiny, it’s significant when we consider the planet’s size. Even more intriguing is the fact that the burden this dam has added to its mass, which is concentrated above sea level, and keeps pressing on Earth’s crust, thereby redistributing the planet’s mass. Scientists have long understood that altering how the Earth’s mass is spread out, will directly influence the ‘moment’ of inertia—the property which affects how quickly our planet spins. The project has moved the earth’s imaginary axis by two centimeters (or nearly an inch).
Think of a spinning top, we had played with in our childhood. It spun with the force we applied when we pulled the string with a force. Again, when some weight was added on the edge, it spun again but the speed slowed down. In ice rinks, we have watched skaters spinning majestically with their arms extended on purpose. It slows down the spin. Whenever the skaters pull their arms in, they spin faster; when they stretch out again, the spin slows.
Our Earth, too, spins slightly slower when mass moves farther from its axis. The Chinese dam’s reservoir essentially “extends the planet’s arms,” causing a tiny slowdown of about 0.06 microseconds in each day. While imperceptible in daily life, it is measurable with precision instruments.
Undesirable consequences of the Three Gorges Dam could include: (1) geological risks; (2) algal blooms and water pollution; (3) loss of biodiversity; (4) increase in water-borne diseases; (5) severe drought; and (6) delta erosion and saltwater intrusion.
While the world’s largest dam acts as a significant source of renewable energy, potentially reducing reliance on fossil fuels, it also influences regional temperatures, precipitation patterns, and greenhouse gas emissions. Specifically, the dam has been shown to have a cooling effect on summer temperatures and a warming effect on winter temperatures within a limited radius of the reservoir. Additionally, the dam alters the hydrological cycle, impacting carbon dioxide (CO2) exchange in downstream lakes and potentially affecting methane (CH4) and nitrous oxide (N2O) emissions.
However, there do exist several Undesirable consequences of the Dam these include: (1) geological risks; (2) algal blooms and water pollution; (3) loss of biodiversity; (4) increase in water-borne diseases; (5) severe drought; (6) delta erosion and saltwater intrusion.
In its creation, this technological marvel has brought significant benefits. It generates more than 80 billion kilowatt-hours of electricity annually—enough to supply multiple countries—while reducing dependence on coal and other fossil fuels in China. Additionally, the dam helps control flooding along the Yangtze River, protecting millions of residents downstream.
But not all impacts are positive. Constructing the reservoir had also displaced approximately 1.3 million people, forcing entire communities to relocate and dramatically altering about 370 miles of landscape. The flooded areas have transformed ecosystems that took centuries to evolve, raising questions about the cost of progress and the price of human intervention in nature.
Several studies, including a report published in 2010 by the journal Geophysical Research Letters, have emphasized that large-scale projects such as this can produce subtle yet significant shifts in Earth’s balance. Experts have called for a careful weighing of benefits against environmental and geophysical consequences when undertaking such feats.
I need to emphasize that the story of human progress is marked with unintended consequences. Three Gorges Dam reveals something profound about our relationship with the planet: even when we act locally with the best intentions—powering cities, preventing floods, and boosting economies—we impact the Earth on a global scale. The planet’s rotation and axis, processes that seem immutable, are sensitive to shifts in mass distribution whether caused by natural events or large engineering projects.
I recall visiting a reservoir in the US, being struck by how much water silently lay there, stretching to the horizon. It made me think about the unseen forces at play—not just water’s visible power, but how its weight might affect the very ground beneath our feet. The remarkable Dam on the Yangtze River is not just a human achievement; it’s a reminder that our planet is a finely tuned system where changes ripple across continents and influence the very measure of our days.
Some issues have continued to bother me. Should we be more cautious about creating mega-structures that change Earth’s physical balance? Have you ever experienced or witnessed large infrastructure projects that made you rethink how humans interact with nature? We can unfold the historical aspects and nations are faced with urgent rush to build a Dam. We can also share this story of the modern Chinese marvel, and start a conversation with friends who love science and the environment.
What would be the plausible consequences in the event of a possible collapse? A Three Gorges Dam failure would result in catastrophic flooding downstream, inundating major cities like Wuhan and Nanjing. The sudden release of millions of cubic meters of water would overwhelm existing flood control measures and lead to widespread destruction and loss of life. The economic impact would be enormous, disrupting supply chains and potentially affecting China’s food production.
The estimated lifespan of the Three Gorges Dam is beyond 100 years. Zhang Chaoran, an academician at the Chinese Academy of Engineering and an expert of hydropower-engineering, had reportedly highlighted his assessments in the Global Times of July 21, 2020.
What would be the Immediate Consequences of a collapse?
- Flooding: The dam’s failure would unleash a massive flood wave down the Yangtze River.
- Urban Inundation: Major cities like Wuhan (11 million inhabitants) and Nanjing (8.5 million) would be submerged.
- Loss of Life: The sudden and severe flooding would result in a massive loss of life.
- Damaged Infrastructure: Levees and other infrastructure along the river would likely be overwhelmed and fail, exacerbating the flooding.
What would be the Long-Term Impacts?
- Food Security: The flood would destroy farmland, potentially causing a severe food shortage in China.
- Economic Disruption: The damage to infrastructure and the disruption to industry and trade would have a significant economic impact.
What would be the global and environmental impact?
- Environmental Damage: The flood would cause extensive damage to the natural environment, including the loss of habitats and the contamination of water resources.
- Global Impact: The economic and social disruption in China would have global consequences due to the country’s role in global trade and supply chains.
- Rising water levels could eventually transform the Three Gorges Dam into a massive waterfall. Tens of millions of the people who live downstream of the dam would be endangered by overflow, or worse yet, the one-in-one-thousand chance of a dam collapse due to war, earthquake or design flaws.
In 1998, I remember talking to a British scientist at a reception in London. He had specialized in overseeing ongoing dam projects around the world.
He recalled “I don’t know why we keep building these (damned) dams,” He had said in a surprisingly forceful British whisper. “Not only do they cause environmental and social disasters, they, with very few exceptions, all fail to do what they were supposed to do in the first place. Look at the Amazon, where they’ve all silted up. What is the reaction to that? They’re going to build another eighty of them. It’s just balmy. We must have beaver genes or something. . . .
At times there’s something so precise and mathematically chilling about nationalism.
Nations build a dam to take away water AWAY from millions of people. They build a dam to pretend to BRING water to millions of people. Who are these gods that govern us? Is there no limit to their powers?
There’s just this kind of sensational desire to build dams, and maybe that should be looked at and excised from human nature. Dams almost never do what they were originally intended to do, but create devastation beyond belief. And yet we keep on building them, and I cannot help but wonder why.
Read: A Tale of Two Cities
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The Bengal-born writer Nazarul Islam is a senior educationist based in USA. He writes for Sindh Courier and the newspapers of Bangladesh, India and America. He is author of a recently published book ‘Chasing Hope’ – a compilation of his articles.
