Advantages of Three Gorges Dam

At first, the Three Gorges Dam was conceived as a project which can reach various aims. That is to protect the downstream of the Yangtze River from the threat of flood in flood peak period, at the same time, give attention to power generation, navigation and irrigation and some other aims.

Advantages of Three Gorges Dam – Flood Control Capacity

With the construction of Three Gorges Dam, there formed a 669 kilometers long, average 1.8 meters wide artificial lake. The total storage capacity of this lake is 93.3 billion cubic meters, which is 4.09 percents of the whole runoff of the Yangtze River (960 billion cubic meters), equal to 8.71 percents of the annual runoff at the Three Gorges Dam site (451 billion cubic meters ).

After the Three Gorges Dam Project completed, it can restrain 22.15 billion cubic meters flood at most in flood season. By comparing the floods before and after the Three Gorges Dam built, we can realize the important meaning which brought by these numbers.

Advantages of Three Gorges Dam – Fully Use Water Resource

The most important design of Three Gorges Dam not only can better improve its flood control capacity, but also can fully use water resource. In preliminary stage, it planed to build 26 Francis reaction turbines, which can generate 84.7 TWh electricity in one year. Presently, it added 6 units, make the whole Three gorges Project include 32 hydraulic turbines which can generate 88.2 TWh electricity. The electricity is even more than twice of the whole power generation capacity of the hydraulic engineering in Switzerland. Through this pollution-free energy, we can save millions tons coal every year. There is no doubt that it will be beneficial for improving air quality and decreasing carbon dioxide discharge.

Advantages of Three Gorges Dam – Ship Locks

Thanks to the construction of ship locks in Three Gorges Dam, the construction of Three Gorges Dam did not make obstacle to the water resource supply in Chongqing areas. On the contrary, the construction of ship locks made the water level increase, which solved the problems of dangerous shoals and rapids in dry season. It made the goods amount passing by the Three Gorges Dam increased to 5 times, while the cost of transportation decreased 35 percents.

The same as in flood season, the Three Gorges Dam also can adjust the water impounding amount in dry season as need. It is meaningful due to drought is more and more serious which caused by global warm.