Sustainability in China

The Three Gorges Dam is considered to be partially sustainable. The dam is sustainable in solving the shortage of electricity in China with a clean energy. The dam helped to reduce carbon emissions and replaced a large number of thermal power units. This lowered the annual coal consumption by 50 million tons. The construction of this dam indirectly reduced the negative effects caused by carbon dioxide like the greenhouse effect. Also, the large amount of water might change the climate in the dam area, making the land suitable for the cultivation of citrus.

The unsustainable part is that “some hydrologists expect downstream riverbanks to become more vulnerable to flooding” (The Three Gorges Dam in China, n.d. Para 12). In Shanghai, a city that sits over 1,000 miles away now is experiencing water shortage. The Three Gorges Dam ruined parts of the Three Gorges area by flooding, and some relics are covered by water. 244 square miles of land was submerged and it lead to about 1.3 million people being displaced and 129 flooded towns.

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