Three Gorges Project and Yangtze River Navigation

Three Gorges Project and Yangtze River Navigation – Introduction of Three Gorges Project

The Three Gorges Project is located on the conjunction place of the upstream and downstream of the Yangtze River. The geographical position of the Three Gorges Place is blessed with unsurpassed status. For the upper side, it can channelize the river course from Sandouping to Chongqing; for the down side, it can increase the flow rate of the river course below the Gezhouba Dam in dry season. It can greatly improve the navigation condition between Chongqing and Hankow, making the Yangtze River be worthy of the name - "Golden Water Course".

Three Gorges Project and Yangtze River Navigation – Benefits of Three Gorges Project

After the Three Gorges Project completed, the river course between Yichang and Chongqing will become deep water course, the 109 dangerous shoals in this part will be submerged, and the shoals station can be canceled. As the increase of river course width and turning radius, ten thousands tons Yangtze Cruise can directly reach Chongqing from Hankow. The annual guarantee capacities will not less than 50 percent, and annual single side navigation capacity will increase to 50 million tons from present 10 million tons.

The captains of Yangtze Cruise always worry about that the landslide on the both banks will affect navigation, even block the water course. This problem will be totally resolved. The navigation time will be greatly decreased, and the navigation cost will decrease 33 percents to 37 percents. In the downstream, every horsepower can share two tons to seven tons cargo, which was only can share 0.7 tones to 0.9 tons.

The flow rate in dry season below the Three Gorges Project will increase to 5500 cubic meters per second, while its natural flow rate is 2700 cubic meters per second. It not only can make the annual generating capacity of the Gezhouba Dam increase 4 billion KWH, but also can make the river course between Hankow and Yichang obviously deeper, and greatly increase the navigation capacity in winter.