Yijian, the most failed water conservancy project in China, why has it not been demolished?
The success of the Three Gorges Project has set a benchmark for water conservancy construction in China, and the Sanmenxia Dam is a controversial project. It cost a lot of money, and although it brought bumper harvests in Henan and Shandong, it made Shaanxi suffer from floods.
There were even calls to blow up Sanmenxia. It is worth pondering what kind of impact this controversial dam has had on our country.
In the 50s of the last century, floods in the lower reaches of the Yellow River brought serious losses to Henan and Shandong, leaving hundreds of thousands of people homeless. In order to deal with this problem, China's Ministry of Water Resources held a meeting in 1954 and decided to build a large flood storage dam in the upper reaches of the Yellow River.
During the construction process, we also specially invited Soviet expert Berkov as foreign aid. Berkev initially proposed to build a dam in the Tongguan area, where the Yellow River has the largest runoff, but the proposal was rejected due to soil and topography problems in the Tongguan area, which would flood 13% of Shaanxi's farmland if the levee bursts.
After in-depth research and discussion, we finally decided to build the dam in Sanmenxia, Henan.
In 1960, the Sanmenxia Dam was put into operation, bringing significant benefits to the coastal area. Prior to this, there were two disasters in Shandong every five years caused by the flood breach.
After the completion of the Sanmenxia Dam, the reservoir impounded water before and during the flood season, effectively controlling the flow of water downstream, so that such disasters never happened again. At the same time, the average yield of wheat along the Yellow River in Shandong has increased by 32 times, and the total output of cotton and grain in Henan has also increased significantly, by 46 times.
However, the situation in Shaanxi is worse. The dam was originally built to prevent floods, but it brought flooding to the people of Shaanxi. In August 2003, 200,000 people were forced to leave their homes during the Weihe River basin in Shaanxi Province, flooding large areas of farmland and villages, and causing direct losses of up to 1 billion yuan.
Mr. Li, a taxi driver in Xi'an, Shaanxi Province, said in an interview with reporters that he thought the Sanmenxia dam should be blown up. This is because the establishment of the Sanmenxia Dam was strongly opposed by Huang Wanli, a well-known water conservancy expert, at that time.
Huang Wanli believes that the Sanmenxia dam will lead to the transfer of floods, that is, the transfer of downstream floods to the upstream, which will have a great impact on the environment and society.
According to statistics from the Shaanxi water conservancy department, from 1965 to 2008, after the dam was built, a total of 137 floods occurred in the Weihe River basin, an increase of 50% compared with the original level, and the direct economic loss exceeded 200 billion yuan.
This is because the Sanmenxia Dam has silted up all the sediment of the Yellow River in Shaanxi. By February 1962, the sediment accumulation in the reservoir area had reached 15300 million tons, causing the riverbed to rise, so that the water of the Wei River cannot flow into the Yellow River, but only to residential areas.
As a result, during the devastating floods of 2003, many people in Shaanxi were angry at the Sanmenxia dam.
1.Problem solving: So, how to solve the problem of flooding in Shaanxi? In 1966 and 1968, two holes and four pipes were added to the dam to discharge the sediment.
Since then, several improvements and adjustments have been made. 2.Follow-up improvements: In 2001, the construction of the Xiaolangdi Dam in the lower reaches of the Yellow River was completed, and the lessons of the Sanmenxia Dam were learned, and a large number of sand discharge holes were added.
Now, the Xiaolangdi Dam and the Sanmenxia Dam work together to control the flood peaks and sand and gravel, which has significantly improved the hydrological environment of the Yellow River Basin. 3.Sanmenxia Dam controversy: Although the Sanmenxia Dam has been controversial since its construction, it has not been demolished.
There is only one reason, and that is that the benefits outweigh the disadvantages. From the point of view of the project itself, in the early stage of the construction of the Sanmenxia Dam, there were major problems with the design scheme of Soviet specialists, which led to various problems with the project.
The Soviet expert ignored the unique geological features of the Loess Plateau and the potential dangers of the Yellow River's sediment. Coupled with the ideological limitations of the era, people blindly worshiped the authority of experts and did not listen to opposing opinions, and finally built a dam that could only control water, not remove sand, and the design was flawed.
In addition, the extent of the damage to the surrounding environment caused by the construction of the Sanmenxia Dam is seriously underestimated, resulting in the salinization of a large amount of land, the inundation of farmland, and the destruction of the ecological environment.
From a social point of view, the construction of the dam involved many migration issues, which brought endless troubles to the migrants in the reservoir area. It is not until the 21st century that these problems have been relatively properly addressed.
The sediment accumulation in the reservoir has led to the elevation of the riverbed in the inflow section of the Yellow River, which has made the flooding disaster in the lower reaches of the Wei River threaten the lives and property of local residents. However, it has also brought many benefits to our country, such as Henan and Shandong's resolute opposition to blowing up the dam, because the Sanmenxia reservoir can bring 200 million yuan a year to Henan, plays an important role in industrial water and farmland irrigation, and is also a local tourist card.
Shandong is also reluctant to dismantle the Sanmenxia Dam because of the existence of the Sanmenxia Reservoir, which avoids the risk of spiritual failure. As you in front of the screen, which side of the argument do you support?