Journal
EARTH-SCIENCE REVIEWS
Volume 124, Issue -, Pages 115-125Publisher
ELSEVIER
DOI: 10.1016/j.earscirev.2013.05.007
Keywords
Environmental impact assessment; Three Gorges Project; Human displacement and environmental carrying capacity; Water quality; Reservoir sedimentation and downstream riverbed erosion; Seismic activity
Categories
Funding
- National Basic Research Program of China (973 program) [2012CB417000]
- Knowledge Innovation Project of the Chinese Academy of Sciences [KZCX1-YW-08-01]
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The paper takes China's authoritative Environmental Impact Statement for the Yangzi (Yangtze) Three Gorges Project (TGP) in 1992 as a benchmark against which to evaluate emerging major environmental outcomes since the initial impoundment of the Three Gorges reservoir in 2003. The paper particularly examines five crucial environmental aspects and associated causal factors. The five domains include human resettlement and the carrying capacity of local environments (especially land), water quality, reservoir sedimentation and downstream riverbed erosion, soil erosion, and seismic activity and geological hazards. Lessons from the environmental impact assessments of the TGP are: (1) hydro project planning needs to take place at a broader scale, and a strategic environmental assessment at a broader scale is necessary in advance of individual environmental impact assessments; (2) national policy and planning adjustments need to react quickly to the impact changes of large projects; (3) long-term environmental monitoring systems and joint operations with other large projects in the upstream areas of a river basin should be established, and the cross-impacts of climate change on projects and possible impacts of projects on regional or local climate considered. (C) 2013 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.
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