Three Gorges Dam - Stochastic Perspective for the Project Planning Issues

Yangtze River in China has been playing havoc, for centuries, causing devastation and destruction to lives and property due to the monsoon floods. To arrest this and to improve the living conditions for millions of Chinese, the Government has taken a bold initiative to 'tame' this mighty river with the construction of a 600 feet high dam, spanning over a mile and half, and extending the Dam to a distance of 350 miles upstream to tap 18200MW of Hydro Electric Power. The sheer size of the Dam and the complexity in this Project execution has never been witnessed in the annals of Water Conservancy project anywhere in the World. The unpredictable fall out on account of human relocation from the dam site, and the after effect of floods in the upper reaches of this mighty river enables us to have a stochastic evaluation of the planning process of this Project. This paper examines the complex issues of ecology and mass scale human relocation, and how the Chinese authorities have overcome the stiff opposition from Environmental critics and human rights activists from both within and outside China with a target date for completion of this mega project in 2009. Also the authors feel that India too can emulate China in circumventing World opposition on these issues by opponents for its own mega Hydel-projects.