Environmental Ethics and Issues in China, 2007

Ecotourism Chinese Style

2008-02-05T05:05:00.000-08:00

A really interesting article appeared in the Guardian (UK) this past weekend looking at the 'green shoots' of ecotourism taking hold in China. The author mainly pottered around the ecotoursim 'hotspot' of Yunnan Province for the article, and talks fairly glowingly of some of the community efforts to kickstart western-style ecotoursim in the area.

Trekking around Jade Dragon Snow Mountain and visits to Lijiang seem to be fairly high on his list. Interesting to note the author went to Wenhai Lake Ecolodge, where we also went last summer.

But of most interest are some comments toward the end of the article. A Chinese ecotour operator says 'Chinese tourists don't yet understand the concept of ecotourism. They like modern hotels with plenty of TV channels, not a Naxi village with chickens running around. They want access by road, not foot'. This is certainly the impression that I got in the area too; most of the tourists doing the really strenuous hikes and staying in remote lodges were westerners, not Chinese.

Dam renovations....

2008-01-17T02:43:00.000-08:00

The Chinese government has admitted ( see articles here and here) that many of their dams are in a sorry state and are desperately in need of renovations. One spokesman even says the dams built during the Mao era may be 'congenitally deficient' and of poor design, caused by the 'times' and lack of objectivity when they were built.

So how many dams are in need of repair? Well, of approximately 87,000 dams in China, more than 37,000 are said to be in a risky or dangerous state. That's a lot....and of course repairing these dams will cost a lot of money and take a long time. so how much are they throwing at the problem? Well, the graphic at rightfrom China Daily sugests it will cost 51 billion Yuan (anout US $ 7 billion) to repair just over 6,000 dams. Not sure what will happen to the other dams, but a government spokesman indicates that the budget for repairing small dams will not be as large.

These dams are a major part of the flood control strategy for the Chinese government. Even with all of these control measures in place, flooding killed over 1,100 Chinese this past summer. A major dam collapse in 1975 killed over 100,000 people from the combined effects of the flood and subsequent famine and disease. China doesn't have the best record in the world with dams, and I think it will take a lot more money and effort to bring them up to a safe standard.

Resettled with dignity!

2008-01-02T01:35:00.000-08:00

An article appears on the front page of China Daily today outlining some of the success stories behind the Three Gorges relocations. Part of the article focuses on people who have been sent to far-away places such as Shanghai or Guangdong, and the other part talks of local resettlement. Granted the article does talk of some of the difficulties that people have faced, but there is of course an overall rosy hue to the piece.

You know, I've travelled quite a bit in these areas and have certainly seen what I feel are better conditions than much of the western press portrays. But, where the western press sets its scope on the negatives, the Chinese press obviously on the positive, you have to think the truth lies somewhere in the middle. Perhaps closer to one side than the exact middle, but the overall need to take both sides with a grain of salt is paramount. Any time you move 1.3 million people to far away areas, often with poor land and few job opportunities, you will have those that succeed and those that don't. The one part of the story that never seems to go away is the level of corruption on the part of the local governments responsible for the relocation.

Oh, and news just in that the water level will rise to 175m asl this coming September.

Tiger Leaping Gorge development cancelled!

2007-12-29T12:18:00.000-08:00

More on this development later, but according to the Guardian, the plans for damming the gorge have been suspended. Fantastic news!

Oh yeah, congratulations to our friend Sean at Walnut Grove (in the Gorge). He's been fighting this for ages!

CNN's Three Gorges piece

2007-12-17T02:05:00.000-08:00

Even CNN has jumped on the Three Gorges catastrophe bandwagon. And I don't use 'bandwagon' in its usual negative sense here, but there are a lot of news agencies starting to report this kind of information. But, I put this one up here because it's a video report, not just the usual few lines in print. The landslides angle seems to be the recent focus of most stories.

Three Gorges in the news again...

2007-12-04T02:21:00.000-08:00

News articles concerning the impacts of the Three Gorges dam are appearing with increasing regularity in the major news providers. The BBC recently had an article outlines serious problems with landslides around the reservoir and even some reservoir-induced tremors. The article states that the landslides are caused by the 'huge weight of water behind the dam and fluctuating water levels'. Sure, I'll buy the fluctuating water levels theory, but the weight of water has nothing to do with landslide development. It's more like the banks becoming saturated and losing cohesive strength at and below the water level. There are even reports of a landslide near Badong burying a bus and killing 30 people. Hmmm, I'd be sceptical of attributing any landslide the didn't originate at or very near the water line to the influence of the reservoir. Still, sounds very ominous and of course the potential for large wave from the landslides is huge. The Economist has a recent article outlining the impact of a landslide about 17 km upstream from the dam that happened in April. I must admit that I was in the are in June, keeping an eye out for landslides and didn't see anything in that area (it seems like it is soil cracking, not complete failure so that would be hard to spot from the riverbanks).

There is also lots of talk, some of it from official sources, about moving another several million people from rural areas into cities, primarily within an hours drive of Chongqing, in order to 'protect the ecology of the reservoir area'. This is supposed to be completed by the year 2020. I note that the population of Fengjie county is supposed to drop by over 40%....to bad, it's a nice place! (see photo)

More Chinese dams...

2007-11-08T02:33:00.000-08:00

Dams in China are in the news again, with China Daily reporting that the blocking of the river has begun to allow for construction of the Xiluodu Dam in the Jinsha River near the Yunnan - Sichuan border. Construction on what will be the second largest dam in the country began in late 2005 and is one of four hydropower stations planned for the Jinsha River, a tributary of the Yangtze. The total energy output from the four dams will be twice that of the Three Gorges Project.

While this project hasn't attracted worldwide attention (and condemnation) accorded the Three Gorges dam, it was postponed in 2005 after the builders tried to defy and order from the State Environmental Protection Agency (SEPA) to conduct a mandatory environmental impact assessment. Apparently SEPA gave the $5 billion project the green light in late 2005.

Another interesting article I came across discusses the 'dam fever' gripping southwestern China, and many of the sometimes successful efforts by NGO's to bring it under control.

On a side note, there are apparently many small 'cottage-industry' dams being constructed across China on smaller rivers for local power generation. The photo is of one under construction near Emei Mountiain in Sichuan that I stumbed across while hiking in 2006.

China to 'build' world's largest national park (?)

2007-10-26T05:57:00.000-07:00

China is creating a new national park in the Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region of the country's northwest, according to an article in China Daily. The article says it will become the world's largest national park, replacing Yellowstone. Errr, wrong. Yellowstone isn't even in the top 10 largest American parks (Wrangell - St. Elias is the largest), and the largest in the world is in Greenland. Poor job by the quality control department.

The park is to be an extension of Kanas Geological Park, and the extended border will incorporate 10 times the land of the original park (to 10,000 km2). Let's hope that this park won't fall victim to some of the problems with existing geological parks in China...the problems of poor public education, inadequate protection, and overdevelopment to lure in the mighty tourist Yuan. For more info on some of these problems take a look at this article from Focus on Geography. China has been putting a lot of effort recently into naming parks and having grand openings, but many (not all) of these parks don't amount to much other than tourist sites with a peripheral interest in preservation and eduation.

Same story, different spin.

2007-10-25T08:19:00.000-07:00

Stoies about environmental issues surrounding the 2008 Olympic Games in Beijing appear online today in several places. CNN has an article suggesting that the air pollution problem has not really been tackled and time may be running out to do something about it. The IOC is even suggesting that some events may have to be delayed if conditions are too bad on the day.

Meanwhile, China Daily are reporting that the United National Environment Program is lauding the organizers for 'greening' the games. The games are apparently a catalyst for the acceleration of environmental programs across the city. Sure, the article does mention air pollution is still an issue, but is much more confident there is still time to fix it.

Just some random China photos...

2007-10-19T01:48:00.001-07:00

I'm bored and was going through a lot of my China photos as I'm supposed to be writing an article (more of a photojournal really) on the Three Gorges area for the magazine Focus on Geography. So I just thought I'd post a few photos that won't be going in any article.

This photo is from 2005 and is of a riverbank shipyard about 30 miles upstream from the dam. It will be completely underwater by now, as will the house.

Polished rock steps and sidewalks are very common in China, and are absolutely treacherous when it rains. There is so much polished rock being used in construction and as ornamentation that I really wonder where it all comes from. There must be entire mountains missing in sections of China!

Along the banks of the Yangtze River in Yichang, 20 miles downstream from the Three Gorges Dam. This is where many of the tourist boats tie-up overnight before going through the gorges.

17th CPC meeting heads up

2007-10-08T02:10:00.000-07:00

Every 5 years the Congress of the Communist Party of China is held. Whenever you hear about '5 year Plans' you're hearing about policy created at this meeting. Right now there isn't much going on other than hype. It only happens every 5 years do it'd kind of a big deal.

http://english.cpcnews.cn/ is where you can get all of the information available. A 'media center' has just opened in Beijing to support the media, both domestic and foreign. Kind of like a hotel/convention center but just for this congress. This year the meeting seems like a bigger deal than usual because a large number of senior party members will be appointed to some very high positions. I would go into the messy politics of China when it comes to the consolidation of power on the part of the Current President, but Blogger is already blocked in China and I don't want the Chinese police knocking on my door tomorrow. If you want to get an idea of how Chinese politics works just take a good close look at the (now jailed) Ex-Mayor of Shanghai (wikipedia will help). But I digress

i figured at an event as important and encompassing as the 17th CCPC they would at the very least gloss over environmental issues. So far the only document provided is the 'Communique of the Sixth Plenum of the 16th CPC Central Committee', so it's dated, but provides the most basic, bare bones goals of the Party. Kind of. It's vague and aggrandizing, but it's something. So keep on eye on it.

on another note, this website is blocked, but I can still make updates through my gmail account, kind of weird.

and yet another note: let me know what you want me to keep on eye on. I'm planning some trips and not only do I need suggestions of where to go, but what to look out for. If you do this class again, or anything like it, i'd love to send you some pictures or whatever information i might be able to pass on.

Potential catastrophe at Three Gorges

2007-09-27T06:16:00.000-07:00

China Daily has an interesting article outlining some of the already recognized ecological issues associated with the Three Gorges dam and reservoir. In Chongqing municipality 36 km of riverbank has collapsed.

"We have to make concerted efforts to attain the dual goals of constructing a first-rate hydraulic project and making it into a top-level showcase for the environment," said Wang, "we will work harder to turn the Three Gorges Reservoir Area into an environmentally-friendly society."

The government has invested heavily in programs designed to restore and conserve the ecology of the Three Gorges area in recent years, including 12 billion yuan (about 1.5 billion U.S. dollars) spent on trying to harness geological disasters such as landslides. It has also closed or relocated 1,500 manufacturing ventures, constructed more than 70 sewage disposal and waste treatment plants and resettled about 70,000 people from disaster-prone areas.

Landslides are certainly apparent along the banks of the river, and the engineers / geologists really should have anticipated the loosely compact soil would be prone to failure. I'm not sure how any trained geoscientist could have missed this as a major, major impact. Going back to the proposed Tiger Leaping Gorge dam and reservoir...the government needs to be extremely careful there as the soil appear much more unstable, and the potential size of land failures much greater. Luckily so far none of the landslides have been large enough to cause wave-induced damage, although certainly some of the older landslides in the area would prove catastrophic should they happen today.

Burma through Chinese media

2007-09-27T06:09:00.000-07:00

While the rest of the world and its new agencies are leading with stories of the crisis in Burma, Xinhua is fairly mute.

The one story contains the following quote ' As a neighbor, China is greatly concerned about the situation in Myanmar, and we hope that all parties in Myanmar show restraint and properly handle the current situation," Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Jiang Yu told a regular press conference.

Jiang called on parties concerned in Myanmar to prevent the situation from becoming more complicated and spreading, and not to affect the peace and stability in Myanmar and the surrounding region.

China expects Myanmar could commit itself to improving the living condition of people, safeguarding the rapprochement among different ethnic groups so to resume peace and stability as soon as possible, said Jiang.'

Nothing in the article gives real detail about the players in the standoff, and no mention of protester deaths is made. China daily repeats the same article.

Wow, China Daily allows reader comments....

2007-08-21T04:04:00.000-07:00

I usually manage to scan the web sites for China Daily and Xinhua every couple of days for info related to China....just to see what's going on. Today I stumbled across something that really surprised me...the China Daily web site allows readers to publish comments relating to articles. So the skeptic in me had a look, thinking I'd only see party line stuff (hey, even the BBC edits reader comments).

But no, comments appear to be from all ends of the spectrum, admittedly with a nationalistic hue.

Responses to this article (scroll down to the bottom and click on comments) on pollution by foreign multinationals quite rightly question the spin of the article. The forum hosted on the China Daily website even has a thread on multi-party governance and talk of problems facing China. Granted the discussions are fairly shallow and in fractured Engrish, but they're there nonetheless.

Rats, lots of Rats.

2007-08-14T23:33:00.000-07:00

Strike another one up for Unintended Consequences. The rising floodwaters of the Yangtze River have caused masses of rats to flee the flooded areas and find refuge in precious agriculture areas. As a result there are plans to build a 1 meter high, 40km long wall to keep the rats from destroying more land. According to the article 1.3 million acres have already been lost to the invasion.

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601080&sid=aD3se8G9E9bk

interestingly enough, their are quotes from those responsible for the wall in which they say the wall isn't really not a solution, rather something to placate worried farmers. Instead, they suggested raising the number of natural predators, whose numbers have dwindled since developing the farm land.

There is more, Much more. And much stranger, but you get used to these things in China:

because the rats number in the billions and the difficulty of disposing of a billion rat carcasses, and also because there is money to be made, the rats are being shipped off to restaurants for food.

http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/china/2007-07/16/content_5435896.htm (best picture ever)

http://abcnews.go.com/WaterCooler/wireStory?id=3381084

http://in.today.reuters.com/news/newsArticle.aspx?type=entertainmentNews&storyID=2007-07-16T104424Z_01_NOOTR_RTRMDNC_0_India-284941-1.xml
"Business is good". Stories like this make me think twice about going back.

and on that note, a little personal info:

I'm going back to China as you know, not to Beijing though, which i'm a little happy about. I'll be in a town called Jiaxing, 100km SE of Shanghai at Jiaxing University. Hopefully i 'll get some good info and stories relevant to this blog and if you guys want me to look out for anything in particular or just to put my ear to the ground, just let me know.

Air pollution may affect Olympics

2007-08-10T02:32:00.000-07:00

Several news agencies (BBC, but again, not Xinhua) are reporting that Olympic boss Jacques Rogge is so concerned about air quality at the 2008 Olymipc Games in Beijing that some events may have to be postponed. This would presumably include those events requiring endurance, like cycling and the marathon. It appears that attempts to clean up Beijing's notoriously foul air haven't really worked to date. The air quality gains from closing and relocation of factories has been offset by more cars on the road and the construction boom. The government is planning a testrun this month of controlling the number of cars allowed in the city in preparation for the games. The Australian Olympic team won't arrive in Beijing until just before the Games to avoid developing respiratory problems.

This kind of reporting only starts to hint at the issues China has to face (and has had to face) in order to put on its best face for the Games. I went out to the Olympic Park in 2005 for a look around, and was astonished at the site. It's huge, and completely surrounded by fairly well-established neighborhoods. So there's no way the site was lying empty prior to its designation as the Olympic park....but one wonders what happened to the people living there. I suppose it's like all the other times 'eminent domain' is applied in China; people must move, no complaints allowed, and fairly minimal compensation. We don't hear too much of this in the news, except for that great story on the Chongqing nail house or of course about Three Gorges relocations.

I also assume that the Chinese officials will do everything in their power to ensure good air quality during the games. However, this would probably require the temporary shutting down of most factories in the region and those upwind, as well as taking most cars off the street. Of course it would all be a bit of a face-saving illusion, and the factories and cars would be back polluting as soon as the athletes go home. China (and not just Beijing...many cities are worse) really needs to start dealing with air pollution on a much longer time scale than the two weeks in August 2008.

Yangtze River dolphins now extinct

2007-08-08T02:45:00.000-07:00

The BBC (article here) and several other news websites (but not Xinhua) are reporting on an article that appeared in Biology Letters, suggesting the Yangtze River dolphin, also called baiji, is now considered extinct. The last one was spotted in 2004, and a scientific survey in 2006 failed to turn up any sign of the dolphin. The traditional range was in the river from the mouth as far west as Yichang, with most of the population in the middle Yangtze near Dongting and Poyang Lakes. The last captive dolphin died in 2002.

The World Conservation Union (IUCN) has noted the following as threats to the species: a period of hunting by humans during the Great Leap Forward, entanglement in fishing gear, the illegal practice of electric fishing, collisions with boats and ships, habitat loss, and pollution. During the Great Leap Forward, when traditional veneration of the Baiji was denounced, it was hunted for its flesh and skin, and quickly became scarce.

As China developed economically, pressure on the river dolphin grew significantly. Industrial and residential waste flowed into the Yangtze. The riverbed was dredged and reinforced with concrete in many locations. Ship traffic multiplied, boats grew in size, and fishermen employed wider and more lethal nets. Noise pollution caused the nearly blind animal to collide with propellers. Stocks of the dolphin's prey declined drastically in recent decades as well, with some fish populations declining to one thousandth of their pre-industrial levels.

In the 1970s and 1980s, an estimated half of Baiji deaths were attributed to entanglement in fishing gear. By the early 2000s, electric fishing was considered "the most important and immediate direct threat to the Baiji's survival." Though outlawed, the destructive fishing technique is widely practised throughout China. The building of the Three Gorges Dam further reduced the dolphin's habitat and facilitated an increase in ship traffic. (text in italics from Wikipedia)

Officially a species cannot be termed extinct until 50 years after the last sighting, so this species is termed 'functionally extinct'. Terminology doesn't really matter here, what does is the fact that it appears to be directly linked to environmental issues, including fishing practices, water pollution, habitat losses, and the construction of large dams such as Gezhouba and the Three Gorges. A shame really.

The Sluice

2007-07-24T03:57:00.000-07:00

China Daily has some great pictures of the Three Gorges Dam's sluice gates opening for the flood waters. Some highlights from the article that I found interesting and/or impressive: only 16 of the 23 sluice gates were opened to keep the water level at 144 meters and at 8 PM on Friday 43,000 cubic meters per second were flowing through the dam.

Three Gorges facing flood peak but doing well via China Daily

Winchester on Wulingyuan National Park

2007-07-14T09:47:00.000-07:00

Steve's hero Simon Winchester has a piece in the NYT fawning over Wulingyuan National Park and the way the CCP has managed it. Basically, they keep the numbers of tourists down by charging an arm and a leg. It is also interesting to note that a big part of the appeal for domestic tourists is not the Karst topography, but the association of the area with the revolutionary hero Marshal He Long.

I've been learning a lot about Chinese nationalism at the this NEH institute I am attending. All the presenters have agreed that Chinese nationalism is the biggest cultural force in China today. Interestingly, nationalism in the Western sense of the word is a new phenomenon there, growing out of the collapse of the Qing dynasty. Western nationalism requires you to think of your people as one nation competing among many, so that you can root for your nation in the competition. When the Middle Kingdom was simply the center of the universe, there really wasn't a need for nationalism in any recognizable sense.

Also interesting: Winchester is working on a book about Joseph Needham, the historian of Chinese science.

Water transfer scheme

2007-07-08T09:53:00.000-07:00

We didn't hear much in China about the massive water transfer scheme, although we did talk about it in class. In short, there are three man-made rivers being constructed from the Yangtze in the south (water surplus), to various locations in the north that have water deficits.

Xinhua has an article indicating that two tunnels under the Yellow River are now under construction as a part of this project. Another article indicates that the Three Gorges reservoir has just been lowered in anticipation of flooding. I find it amazing the number of water resource-related articles coming out of Xinhua. Here's another one.

2007-07-07T23:22:00.000-07:00

A quick question I asked myself a few times while in China:

who is a bigger ethnowhore? The ethnic minority wearing in costume at the Stone Forest getting their picture taken with tourists or our group getting our picture taken with tourists?

The same goes for more than just getting pictures taken. In the two times I've been to China I have unwittingly, but sometimes purposefully, exported a piece of my culture. Whether I was showing off my sick dance movies, or teaching Chinese people about hockey, I sold a piece of my culture. Is that all it takes to be considered an "ethnowhore" (great word, by the way, Rob.) What would one have to do in order to become an ethnowhore and in the end, does it preserve diversity? At what cost?

More about rubble....

2007-07-02T06:45:00.000-07:00

Below is a photo I took on my first trip to China in 2001. Sticking with the "rubble" theme (see below), this open area in Xiamen, Fujian Province, is actually the drivers license test place. Buddy sitting on the little pink stool is the examiner and you can vaguely see the outline of the test track. I watched from a window across the street while people came to the site, did a few reversing manouvers, and then got some papers stamped. I just loved how informal it all was, and set amongst the lovely rubble.

Also in Xiamen was another of China's oddities. The city on the southeast coast is directly across from Taiwan, and in fact there are two islands not far offshore of the mainland that are controlled by Taiwan. A whole industry of "Taiwan watching" has grown up along the shore, with entrepreneurs setting up powerful telescopes and charging for viewing Taiwan. You can see the Taiwanese island of Quemoy in the background. Very strange...

Rubble rubble everywhere....

2007-06-29T07:06:00.000-07:00

As much as I love travelling through China and find it a mesmerizing place, there is one thing that I find really troubling. It is impossible (ok, very difficult) to find any place that has not been disturbed by humans in some manner. Rob and I first talked about this in terms of soil disturbance, and I thought it would be nearly impossible to find a truly well-developed natural soil profile, except in really remote areas. This doesn't apply to all parts of China, but there is a stunning lack of natural landscape. Even places set aside as parks or preserves tend to be groomed or landscaped, as Kate pointed out about the Stone Forest.

And it's not just the clearing or land that is disturbing. If the land isn't being farmed or is built upon, then it's generally covered in rubble. Rubble, rubble everywhere. Bricks, broken rocks, bits of scrap building material - everywhere. I went to a small village on the banks of the Yangtze a few years ago where at least they were growing watermelons amongst the rubble, but in most places it's just piled up waiting for who-knows-what.

China recycles!

2007-06-25T15:55:00.001-07:00

One of the things that struck me in China was the level to which the country recycles. While we may do household recycling in North America, the Chinese take it one step further. Garbage bins in major cities have two sides to them, one for garbage and one for recyclables. Mind you, with the need to drink bottled water in China they must go through a huge number of plastic bottles annually. There is apparently a refund for them too, as in many places you see people collecting them from users, or pulling them out of the recycling bins.

I don't have a photo of the two-sided bins, but this one from Beijing is more interesting.

Another great internet resource

2007-06-22T13:17:00.000-07:00

I came across this website that has links to lots of information concerning China's environment. It doesn't look to have been updated in a while, but still a great link.

Lijiang: Is it real?

2007-06-21T12:24:00.000-07:00

Lijiang is becoming one of China's most favored tourist sites, but it wasn't always so. Tourism has boomed since the city was placed on UNESCO's World Heritage List in 1997. Quite the dramatic turnaround for the city, considering it was seriously damaged in a 1996 earthquake (and 309 of its county citizens killed).

But I really wonder how much of the old part of the city is real and how much has been reconstructed. Searching the internet, I found articles (here, here and here) that discuss the damage. Many reports and tour guides indicate that the older structures in the historic part of town withstood the earthquake quite well, while more modern construction suffered more damage. But looking at these articles it is obvious that damage was widespread, old and new, and a map (Figure 8 in this article) shows a significant number of deaths in the old part of town.

So how much has been rebuilt into the tourist draw that it is today? I saw sections at the periphery of the "old town" that were being constructed to look old. I also noticed that the canals running through the old town had large drains in their beds, like western manhole covers. Lijiang is called the "Little Venice of the Orient", but I'll bet Venice doesn't have drains in its canals. That to me points to a rather unnatural, yet very aesthetically pleasing, canal system, but also raises the question of authenticity. Certainly still worth a visit though!

Tiger Leaping Gorge: Another Megadam?

2007-06-14T14:18:00.000-07:00

Rob's post below looks at the area around the megadam that everyone seems to know about - the Three Gorges Dam. Construction there started in 1994 and will only be completed in 2009, with the final rise in water level to 175m above sea level. That's a total rise of almost 80 m in sections close to the dam. That one's a done deal, with most of the construction and relocation already complete. But what the world doesn't really know about are the plans to dam the Yangtze 1500 km further upstream, in the famous Tiger Leaping Gorge of Yunnan Province. This dam would be purely for energy production, as the site is upstream of the traditional navigable Yangtze.

It's really hard to get accurate information about these dam plans. We heard several different versions from people we met, ranging from a huge single dam to a series of 8 smaller dams through the 25 km long gorge. Note that the Times Online has an article suggesting the single dam approach would yield a dam 278 m high and a reservoir almost 200 km long. An Asia Times article written also written in 2006 suggests the 8 dam plan is in the works.

Hiking through the gorge with the class gave me the opportunity to look at the area and roughly estimate it's suitability for such a dam and reservoir. As a geology professor and wannabe geotechnical engineer, it's the stuff I love to do.

First off, the rock is fairly fractured schist in the middle gorge, and fractured marble at the gorge exit where the dam would be. Not the most stable rock to be building on. I managed to find a tunnel near Walnut Grove that researchers had obviously excavated in order to look at fracturing in the marble. There are a lot of other obvious signs that geotechnical testing is underway. As I see it, one of the biggest challenges for the dam builders would be the issue of landslides. Landslide debris is found throughout the gorge, and the only road through the gorge is currently blocked by three large slides. The entire village of Walnut Grove is situated on an old landslide perhaps 2 km wide. Saturating the banks of the gorge when the water level is raised further weakens the strength of the rock, so if this many landslides are happening now, it doesn't bode well for the post-dam gorge.

So why should we care about landslides in the area, especially if they plan to move most of the people out of there? Check out the Vajont disaster that killed 1,450 people in Italy when a landslide triggered a huge wave that overtopped the dam and inundated the town below. The largest waves in the world have all been triggered by landslides into open water. If they build this dam, I wouldn't think it safe to keep any people in the valley, even if your house and land are above the new water level.

Oh yeah, the epicenter of the 1996 magnitude 7.2 Lijiang earthquake was actually in Tiger Leaping Gorge. Not good.

Life on the Yangtze

2007-06-14T08:59:00.000-07:00

(Cross posted at Big Monkey, Helpy Chalk, where I've been posting general travelogue stuff, rather than philosophical reflections.)

Like the St. Lawrence, the Yangtze is not really a river, but a "seaway," with all aspects of the river ecosystem pushed out by the needs of shipping. You don't see many people fishing on the river. This visit I only saw one fishing boat, although last time, when I spend more time and covered a longer stretch of the river I saw more. Mostly what you see is this:

Coal, the blood of the current Chinese economy. Small hoppers of coal line the banks of the Yangtze. Dump trucks bring the coal, typically from small, independently run mines with poor safety standards. The kind of mining disaster that makes national news for weeks if it happens in West Virginia happens every day in China.

Concrete reinforced banks add a lot to the sense that the Yangtze is a highway.

To deal with erosion after the flooding caused by the new dam, the government put nets over the steeper banks of the river and coated them with concrete. Most of this will be under water when the dam is fully operational. In case you forget how high the water will be by then, there are constant reminders

Officially, the flooding has forced the resettlement of 1.1 million people, including 13 major cities and about 25 thousand hectares of farmland. (This according to the handy yellow technical guide given to tourists by the government.) Most of these people are moved to brand new relocation cities built a little farther up the river bank. About 10% are moved to entirely new provinces. The consensus seems to be that those 10% are totally fucked.

The relocation cities are quite a sight. They all have built docks at 175 m. above sea level, but since the river isn't there yet, you see huge foundations of the docks.

This is the dock for Fengjie. For some reason water was gushing down the side.

Since the river hasn't reached the permanent dock, temporary docks were built and the current level. Generally there is no way to get from the dock to the city other than climbing a buttload of stairs.

Out student Kate was traveling with a broken leg, which made the steps loathsome. Fortunately for Kate the oversupply of labor in China sometimes meant that she had alternative ways to travel.

Stone Forest revisited

2007-06-11T08:39:00.000-07:00

My second visit to the Stone Forest of Yunnan was markedly different from the first. In 2005 I visited the area while researching an article on geological parks in China. Our guide for that trip was a geologist, and we met with the park geology staff and several academics conducting research in the area. The article (in Focus on Geography: Winter 2006) described the park and its educational efforts in somewhat glowing terms. Yet, I think I really was seeing the park through the eyes of a geologist, not one of the masses of tourists.

Our group visit in May 2007 was as tourists. We gave no advance warning and there was no party of cadres ready at the gate to answer all of our questions. Hoards of tourists were milling about, all seemingly refusing to progress more than 200 m inside the park. They stayed on the paths and many were carted around in open-air buses. Typical Chinese tourism some might say, take photos where told and don't really experience the park, just tick it off your checklist to tell the folks back home. I had a feeling of depression, knowing that off the beaten path was a wonderfully strange geological site, yet none of the visitors seemed to grasp that. Nor were they interested.

Part of the mandate of World Geoparks is that they must promote geological heritage education. There certainly are informative signs scattered about the park. But, there are no guidebooks available to the general public, and the location of the museum remained a bit of a mystery (none of the guides knew of its existence). In 2005 the park officials were eager to mention a new geological museum was under construction, although we didn't see it. Apparently not many people do in 2007 either!

Once again it seems that mass tourism has trumped educational tourism. Or is it just that the culture of tourism differs in the east?