Three Gorges Dam Operation Altered Networks of Social-Economic-Ecological System in the Yangtze River Basin, China

It is necessary to review changes in the interactions of indicators following the construction of the Three Gorges Dam (TGD) in order to explore the impact of the dam on ecology. Research on changes in interactions among indicators of the comprehensive social-economic-ecology system in the Yangtze River Basin is limited, and the objective of this study was to investigate how this system changed after the operation of the TGD, as well as how the indicators contributed to this change. Here, the correlational network approach using 38 data point indicators from 1949 to 2018 of the Yangtze River Basin was applied to analyze the changes in indicator interactions before and after the TGD operation. The TGD impoundment altered networks of the social-economic-ecological system in the Yangtze River Basin. Indicators are both less positively and less negatively connected. The number of synergy and trade-off networks clusters changed from two (Modularity = 0.33) to -six (Modularity = 0.23) and from two (Modularity = 0.015) to four (Modularity = 0.34) after the TGD operation, indicating that the sustainable development of the Yangtze River Basin might be at a middle level after the TGD operation. Further analysis revealed that the mean annual discharge, downstream fry runoff, and downstream counts of the eggs and larvae of four carp, diatom abundance index, breeding population of Chinese sturgeon, and annual precipitation contributed more to the changes in the networks after 2003.

Automated summary

This study analyzed the changes in interactions among indicators in the comprehensive social-economic-ecological system of the Yangtze River Basin to explore the impact of the Three Gorges Dam on ecology. The construction of the dam altered the network structure of the system, with fewer positive and negative connections among indicators. The findings suggest that the sustainable development of the Yangtze River Basin may be at a moderate level after the operation of the dam.