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dam-l Re: Environmental impacts of dams China: Three Gorges and diseases
>>From www@dejanews.com Mon Jul 6 23:45:03 1998
>Subject: Re: Environmental impacts of dams China: Three Gorges and diseases
>Reply-To: dianne@sandelman.ottawa.on.ca
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>Subject: Environmental impacts of dams China: Three Gorges and diseases
>From: enviro@salata.com (Recycled News)
>Date: 1998/05/24
>Newsgroups: talk.environment
>
>Environmental impacts of dams
>China: Three Gorges and diseases
>
>The Lancet (British Medical Association) 16 May 1998: 351 (9114): 1449-1450
>
>Public health and public Choice: dammed off at China's Three Gorges?
>
>
> The World Bank and the World Conservation Union have appointed an
>independent World Commission on Dams.1 Proponents and antagonists of large
>dams agreed to the Commission, which will start its 2-year inquiry next
>week. The Commission, made up of hydroengineers, environmental activists,
>civil servants and academics, will assess large dam experience, evaluate
>costs and benefits, and review alternatives. Their conclusions will
>profoundly influence global dam policy. The inquiry coincides with
>construction of the largest hydroproject ever, China's 182 metre high Three
>Gorges Dam across the Yangtze river, which is expected to alter the health
>and welfare of millions of people by 2009 (figure).
>
>
> At least 35,000 large dams already exist. The number and size of
>such
>dams, built to boost economic development in low-income countries, have
>increased
>in recent decades. Megadams have adverse effects on people they oust (2
>million per year), communities in which these people settle, and downstream
>residents.1,2 The Sardar Sarova dam on the Narmada River in India gained
>notoriety from vigorous local opposition due to its costly social impacts
>and the World Bank withdrew its loan in 1993. Many other dams, such as
>Arun in Nepal, Kaeng Sua Ten in Thailand, and Bakun in Malaysia, are being
>opposed by environmentalists.
>
>
> Despite the importance of the Three Gorges dam for the development of
>China's heartland, neither the World Bank Group nor the US Export-Import
>Bank are providing finance - a point that reflects concern about impacts.
>There is no external scrutiny of adverse effects. It will create a lake 640
>km long extending up to the huge industrial city of Chongqing. The lake
>will displace at least 1.3 million people and directly impinge on 20 million
>others along its length.3 Below the dam, downstream farmland along 1500 km
>of the river and 300 million people will also be affected, protected from
>floods but deprived of fertile erosion-preventing silt for many years. The
>dam's power capacity of 18,600 megawatts will boost China's electricity
>power supply by 10%. Additional turbines will later increase it to 22,800
>megawatts, which is nearly twice the power of the next largest hydropower
>plant, the Brazil-Paraguay Itaipu dam. The reservoir will also permit
>passage of 10,000-ton ships, three times the size of vessels reaching
>Chongqing now.
>
>
> The Three Gorges dam has all the problems of very large dams, but
>none more so than the social and public health impact expected on the
>displaced
>population. The dam is costing China at least $25 billion USD and huge sums
>are flowing into resettlement, bridges and roads. But only 60% of ousted
>farmers, 40% of the displaced, will get 'land-for land'. The population
>living near the future reservoir are crowded (350 people/sq km),4 poor
>(average income US$132/head per year),5 and unhealthy (maternal mortality
>84-727/100,000 births/yr, infant mortality 45-132/1000 births/yr).6 Health
>services, water supplies and sanitation are inadequate and there is a high
>incidence of rheumatic fever, hepatitis B, pneumonia, measles and diarrhoea.
>Other health risks include a resurgence of endemic infections - malaria,
>paragonimus, epidemic hantaanvirus haemorrhagic fever with renal syndrome,
>Japanese B Encephalitis and leptospirosis.4 Keshan disease, a commonly
>fatal cardiomyopathy of young women and children linked to low selenium
>soils, enterovirus infection, mouldy grain, and the diets in endemic areas,
>may appear among the people ousted.4 Fluorosis from use of unchecked
>fluorine-containing coal and ground water is also a threat.4
>
>
> A large workforce has assembled and the active nightlife increases
>the risk of HIV, boosted further by the prevalence of gonorrhoea, ranked
>third
>as a major infectious disease in China.7 The most serious threat is that
>schistosomiasis could become established in the reservoir area. This
>parasitic disease persists along the Yangtze despite a 40-year control
>programme, with endemic areas only 40 km below the dam as well as 500 km
>above Chongqing (figure).8 Epidemics of schistosomiasis, malaria and other
>parasitic infections have occurred around many reservoirs created by dams
>elsewhere.2
>
>
> But there is no programme in China to combat the threats of the
>Three Gorges dam to public health. One Ministry of Health division is
>assessing the schistosomiasis risk, but other health threats are not under
>study. No national multisectoral dialogue connects health to other agencies
>dealing with the dam. Last year, the 16 reservoir-affected counties in
>Sichuan were
>placed under Chongqing, which has become a new municipality with Province
>status, like Beijing, Tianjin and Shanghai. All provincial government
>functions assumed by Chongqing require staff training, but local expertise
>is needed immediately to monitor, prevent and mitigate the adverse dam
>effects. So the health-sector response to the Three Gorges dam is
>constrained at all levels.
>
>
> Future megadams must compensate affected populations fairly. Public
>health, always overlooked and underfunded, should be a major focus of reform
>of dam policy. The environmental, social, and health impacts of the Three
>Gorges dam will dwarf those of all other dams, and they may be as influential
>as
>any new policy deriving from the World Commission on Dams. A bad
>Three-Gorges result could become the Chernobyl of hydropower. If China
>seeks multilateral inputs to investigate and mitigate adverse health and
>social impacts, positive responses are expected. It is not yet too late..
>
>
>by: Adrian Sleigh & Sukhan Jackson
>
>
>Footnotes: 1 Dorcey T, Steiner A, Acreman M. Orlando B, eds. Large
>Dams. Learning
>from the past and looking at the future. Proceedings of workshop held April
>11-12, 1997, Gland, Switzerland. Washington: IUCN/World Bank; 1997
>
> 2 Hunter JM, Rey L, Chu KY, Adekolou-John EO and Mott KE. Parasitic
>Diseases in Water Resource Development. Geneva: World Health Organisation ;
>1993
>
> 3 Xiong Lei. Going against the flow in China. Science 1998; 280:
>24-26.
>
> 4 Chen Y, Shi M, Zhao M, et al, eds. Atlas of the Ecology and
>Environment
>in the Three Gorges Area of the Changjiang River. Beijing: Science Press;
>1990
>
> 5 Zhu N. Research on the Three Gorges Project. Resettlement and
>Development of Reservoir Area. Wuhan: Wuhan University Press; 1996 (in
>Chinese)
>
> 6 China Health Yearbook Beijing: The Peoples Health Publishing House;
>1994 (in Chinese)
>
> 7 China Statistical Yearbook. Beijing: China Statistical Publishing
>House; 1996 (in Chinese)
>
> 8 Qian Xin Zhong, ed. Schistosomiasis atlas of the People's Republic
>of
>China, vols1-3. Shanghai; China Atlas Society Publishing House, 1987 (in
>Chinese)
>
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Dianne Murray,
Coordinator, Dam-Reservoir Working Group
Webmistress, Dam-Reservoir Impact and Information Archive
http://www.sandelman.ottawa.on.ca/dams
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