Sandouping - Three Gorges Dam, China

Sandouping village is the site of the monumental Three Gorges Dam project, the most ambitious engineering project of its kind. Here you will learn about the immense construction project and its effects on the people and landscapes of China. This hydroelectric project is planned for completion in 2009 when the river will rise to a final 575 feet above sea level, displacing 1.25 million people, submerging 13 cities, 140 towns and 1,352 villages and flooding the narrow gorges of the Yangtze’s tributaries, creating a lake behind the dam and smoothing out the shoals and rapids in the river. China’s new dam promises to yield the equivalent power of 15 nuclear plants as well as control the centuries-old problem of devastating Yangtze floods. While the dam has changed certain aspects of this experience, the gorges remain an impressive natural phenomenon.