Dam News, Part 2: Floods
In stark contrast to the American West’s ongoing drought, torrential rain has recently flooded parts of China and Germany. Specifically in China, the summer floods have highlighted the infrastructural faults of dams that are unable to withstand high quantities of water that come with climate change. On July 18, 2021, two dams in Inner Mongolia collapsed due to heavy rain and one was breached, threatening the lives of over 16,600 people. Video of the collapse of both the Yong’an and Xinfa dams in Henan province can be seen here. New reports state that 302 deaths resulted from the unprecedented 24 inches of rain (a year’s worth of rain) that fell within a day causing unexpected flash floods.
Historically, the Yangtzee river basin has faced seasonal floods, however, the recent growth of cities and transformation of farmlands to suburbs has exacerbated the destruction. Dams that are not able to hold back raising reservoirs threaten millions of lives. In a desperate attempt to protect downstream residents from floodwaters, China blew up one of its dams in 2020.
Dozens of other dams are at risk of breaching and flooding cities downstream due to the “once in a thousand year” rains that are becoming more frequent with climate change. The world’s largest hdyropower plant, the Three Gorges Dam, may not be suited to stop the increased frequency of flooding in the country. In 2020, 1.8 million people were evacuated and losses were estimated at $7 billion due to flooding. In 2021, costs are already around $26 billion in damages.
Authorities worry about the other 98,000 dams in China, 80% of which are more than four decades old. Citing a lack of financial resources, the Chinese government acknowledged that more than a third of the country’s dams have not had mandatory safety appraisals completed. Some fear these dams “could collapse at any time.” Dam failures are so common, there is a wikipedia page dedicated to them; the majority of the 200+ global dam failures have occurred since 2000, but date back to 575 AD. The largest dam failure in history was in Henan Province, China in 1975 when the collapse of the Banquao dam killed 171,000 people and displaced 11 million more.
In response to the threats of dam collapse and failure, China’s current President Xi Jinping is eager to shut down around 40,000 hydropower plants, reversing the nation’s effort to “conquer nature” initiated by Chairman Mao Zedong in the 1950s. Officials cite many dams are too small for generating meaningful amounts of energy, some are now located on dried out river beds, reservoirs are filled with silt, and many were badly planned. At least 930 dams were built without environmental assessments. Thus far, critics say that the government has only spent money to make the rivers look good, but has not yet addressed the social-ecological problems faced by many of the rivers and communities throughout the country.
As flooding continues to threaten, kill, and displace peoples throughout China, the global community continues to promote hydropower as a clean and renewable, sustainable technology needed to fight climate change.