Over 20,000 Hydropower Stations Intercept Yangtze River Water

We have never forgotten the Three Gorges.

We believe that the areas covered by the post-Three Gorges era should be expanded from the Three Gorges themselves and the issues concerning the ecology, geology, and immigration of the Three Gorges to their attention to the Yangtze River. Both are bad for each Other.

More than 20,000 hydropower stations intercepted the Yangtze River water; the increasingly severe pollution situation; and the entanglement of water rights issues that have not yet come up with a plan will be included in our attention.

Water system

For every 3 cubic meters of water in China, there is 1 Yangtze River water, and 1 yuan for every 3 yuan of GDP comes from the Yangtze River.

Originating from the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau, the Sichuan Basin traverses the “Land of Abundance” and swings between the two lakes, “Huguangshushu and Tianxiazu”. It breeds the Sujiao Land of “Jiangxi and Huai Rice Grain Fertilizer” and flows through the “Yangfu River” within the Yangtze River Delta. This 6,380-kilometer-long mother river in China, with an area of ​​1.8 million square kilometers, flows through 11 provinces, cities, and districts, and the tributaries extend 8 provinces and districts. More than 700 rivers and rivers are collected along the river, with an average annual rate of nearly 10,000. Billions of cubic meters of seawater flow into the sea eastwards.

Like the lush trees of the Yangtze River, the main stream has more than 700 primary tributaries, including more than 40 drainage areas with an area of ​​more than 10,000 square kilometers, 9 more than 50,000 square kilometers, and 4 more than 100,000 square kilometers.

The Yangtze River has a large number of lakes that connect the rivers and lakes. The total area of ​​rivers and lakes is more than 22,000 square kilometers, with 97.8% concentrated in the middle and lower reaches. They are the natural regulating reservoirs of the Yangtze River, including Poyang Lake, Dongting Lake, Taihu Lake, Hongze Lake and Chaohu Lake, and only along the banks of the three provinces of Hunan, Hubei and Chongqing. There are more than 1,200 lakes with an area of ​​more than 100 acres.

Hydropower

The flood disaster in the Yangtze River mainly occurred in the low-lying Jianghan Plain in the middle reaches of the Yangtze River, especially in the Jingjiang section of the "above-the-ground river".

At present, the Yangtze River Basin has initially formed a flood control system consisting of embankments, reservoir dams, flood storage and detention areas, and river improvement projects. More than 45,000 types of reservoirs have been built, with a total storage capacity of 174.5 billion cubic meters, accounting for nearly 20 percent of annual runoff. %, large reservoirs are mainly concentrated in the middle and lower reaches.

Rolling over the Yangtze River, the gap between the west and the east is more than 6,000 meters. The total amount of hydropower resources is 216.8 million kilowatts, of which 197 million kilowatts can be developed. For thousands of years, the abundant hydropower resources of the Yangtze River have been in turbulent flow. Development is a matter of recent decades. In the Yangtze River Basin, there are nearly 20,000 hydropower stations currently under construction or under construction. Except for the Three Gorges and Gezhouba on the main stream, the tributaries have large-scale (with an installed capacity of over 250,000 kilowatts) and medium-sized (2.5 million kilowatts to 250,000 kilowatts). There are nearly 100 hydroelectric stations.

Some experts pointed out that while these reservoirs and dams are developing and utilizing water resources, they have changed the natural pattern of the Yangtze River water system to a certain extent, and the connectivity of water systems has been affected, and the ecological environment of local river sections has been fragmented and fragmented.

Water pollution

As a place where China’s economic power is transferred, as an ideal habitat for the explosive growth of the heavy chemical industry at the beginning of this century, the Yangtze River itself has faced crises and has successively erupted such major sudden water pollution accidents as the Xiangjiang River cadmium pollution and Yueyang arsenic pollution.

According to the "Yangtze River Protection and Development Report" issued by the Chinese Academy of Sciences and the Yangtze River Water Conservancy Commission in 2007, the Yangtze River is facing ecological destruction, soil erosion, shrinkage of lake wetlands, drastic decline in biodiversity, frequent flood and waterlogging, and deterioration of water environment and water quality. A series of questions.

In 2007, the total amount of waste water discharged from the Yangtze River was approximately 32 billion tons, 62% more than in 1998. It is estimated that by 2030, the amount of chemical oxygen demand entering the Yangtze River Basin will exceed 5.032 million tons, an increase of 37.5% from the current situation; The amount of river is 658,800 tons, an increase of 79.15% from the current situation.

Compared with the 1950s, the area of ​​lakes in the Yangtze River Basin has decreased by 40%, natural wetlands have shrunk by 38%, and the water quality of the 600km-long river reaches of the city's coast has been seriously polluted.

According to the data released by the Ministry of Environmental Protection in December 2010, 81.5% of the 7,555 chemical and petrochemical construction projects with a total investment of nearly 1,015.2 billion yuan were located in rivers and densely populated areas including the Three Gorges reservoir area and the South-North Water Diversion Canal. In other environmentally sensitive areas, 45% of them are major sources of risk.

In a research report by Yuan Hongren, former deputy director of the Yangtze River Commission's Commission on Water Conservation, he mentioned "the impact of the Three Gorges Project on the water environment," but "by taking measures, it can generally be eliminated or mitigated."

According to statistics, the Three Gorges reservoir area receives an annual average of more than one billion tons of waste water, of which 850 million tons of waste water is discharged annually in Chongqing, 135 million tons in Fuling, and 81 million tons in Wanzhou. The sewage outlets in Yichang are mainly concentrated in Badong, Annual discharge of waste water amounted to 0.06 billion tons. After a large amount of untreated waste water was discharged into the waters of the reservoir area, a relatively serious shoreline pollution belt had formed in the local river section.

After the construction of the reservoir, the elevation of the water level and the slowing of the water flow are not conducive to the proliferation of pollutants, which will increase the situation. The initial normal water level of the reservoir is 156 meters. The adverse impact on the water quality is mainly concentrated in the vicinity of the dam to the vicinity of Changshou County. The reservoir is operated at a normal impoundment level of 175 meters. The adverse impact on the water quality will involve the entire reservoir area.

Water rights

The total amount of water resources in the Yangtze River Valley is abundant, but the distribution of time and space is extremely uneven. The disputes over water rights are almost everywhere. In particular, inter-provincial disputes are constant all the year round.

At the beginning of the “Eleventh Five-Year Plan”, the Yangtze River Committee set up a water conservancy supervision team with more than 300 people. In the past five years, it has handled a large number of water disputes, including the half-century-old Edo Danjiang Jingzi Guanshui. In disputes, the exploitation rights of the Hunan-Ergeng Linxi River hydropower station are disputed, and the water disputes in the Eyujie-Baihe Reservoir are also disputed.

Yangtze River Commissioner Xu Gaohong summarized the water disputes in the Yangtze River as water disputes, water storage disputes, drainage disputes, water control disputes, and water management disputes. The provincial water disputes followed a road from “discarding water” to “contending for water”. In the past, disputes over sand mining were mostly conflicts between flood control and drainage. With the socio-economic development of the river basin, the development and utilization of the border rivers have been continuously improved. At the same time as competing for “water quantity,” inter-provincial water pollution disputes have gradually emerged. Water quality disputes have emerged. Is becoming a new trend.

The Three Gorges Project and the construction of the South-to-North Water Transfer Project also involve water rights issues. Chen Jin, president of the Yangtze River Commission's Yangtze River Scientific Research Institute, said that “the Three Gorges Project has changed the flow process and formed a new distribution of benefits”, and how to weigh the “worthful thinking”, and the “South-to-North Water Transfer Project” is facing the controversy over how to define property rights and how to collect high water prices. .

At present, the distribution of water in the Yangtze River Basin is still implemented in accordance with the “Water Allocation Management Regulations” of the Ministry of Water Resources. Only the inter-provincial rivers, where water conflicts are more prominent, carry out the reform of the initial water rights allocation system.

A number of academicians had previously said that China’s water supply and demand situation urgently needs to establish a water rights system. Including the definition, distribution and transfer of water rights. The director of the Yangtze River Committee, Cai Qihua, also told the media, "We are doing a bit of basic research, but we haven't come up with a plan for the entire river basin."