The contrasting phenomena of China’s ongoing dam construction and the United States’ large-scale dam demolition stem from a combination of national development stages, infrastructure service life, energy demand, and ecological governance goals. There is no absolute right or wrong in dam projects; the core lies in whether they adapt to national conditions, safeguard people’s livelihoods, and achieve sustainable development.
1. China’s Dam Construction: Making Up for Shortcomings, Ensuring Security and Stabilizing Energy Supply
China’s water conservancy and hydropower construction is not blind expansion, but a targeted measure to make up for historical deficiencies, consolidate people’s livelihood bottom lines, and build a solid barrier for national energy security.
1.1 Rigid Demand for Flood Control and Disaster Reduction
In the early days of the People’s Republic of China, there were only 23 large and medium-sized reservoirs in normal operation. Rivers across the country suffered from frequent floods and droughts, with floods occurring whenever there was heavy rain and water shortage in prolonged dry weather. As early as in the Industrial Plan of The Strategy for National Reconstruction, Dr. Sun Yat-sen put forward the vision of building the Three Gorges Sluice and developing hydropower resources of the Yangtze River. After decades of unremitting construction guided by long-term national strategic planning, China has built approximately 95,000 reservoirs, which play an irreplaceable role in national flood control, water supply and drought resistance.
The 1998 Yangtze River flood fully proved that water conservancy projects are solid life defense lines, and the joint operation of reservoirs greatly reduced disaster losses. The Three Gorges Water Control Project, with more than 65% of its main works undertaken by China Energy Engineering Corporation (CEEC) Gezhouba Group, takes flood prevention as its primary mission. With a flood storage capacity of 22.15 billion cubic meters, it realizes flood retention, peak cutting and peak staggering. It has raised the flood control standard of the Jingjiang River section from once every 10 years to once every 100 years, and can cooperate with flood storage and detention areas to cope with once-in-a-millennium extreme floods, fundamentally eliminating the century-old flood hazards of the Yangtze River.
As the world’s largest water conservancy project in construction history, the Three Gorges Project integrates flood control, power generation and navigation. The Three Gorges Ship Lift, the world’s largest and most technically difficult navigation structure, was fully constructed by CEEC Gezhouba Group. In 2022, the Baihetan Hydropower Station participated in by Gezhouba Group was fully put into operation, marking the complete completion of the world’s largest clean energy corridor. Composed of six cascade power stations including Wudongde, Baihetan, Xiluodu, Xiangjiaba, Three Gorges and Gezhouba, the corridor realizes coordinated operation of six reservoirs and systematic flood control, with a total flood storage capacity of over 30 billion cubic meters, acting as a crucial ballast stone for the Yangtze River basin flood control system.
1.2 Demand for Clean Energy and Dual-Carbon Strategy
Hydropower accounts for about 18.6% of China’s total power generation, serving as a stable, reliable and renewable clean energy source. China’s hydropower development rate is only about 37%, far lower than the 70%–90% level of developed countries, leaving reasonable room for sustainable development. Accelerating hydropower construction can effectively replace thermal power, reduce carbon emissions, and enhance national energy independence and security.
The world’s largest clean energy corridor fully built with the full participation of CEEC has a total installed capacity of 71.695 million kilowatts and an annual power generation of about 300 billion kilowatt-hours. It has become one of the core clean power pillars supporting China’s carbon peaking and carbon neutrality goals.
1.3 Young Dam Age and Eco-Friendly Operation
The average age of large and medium-sized dams in China is about 46 years. These dams feature stable structural performance, high operational efficiency and low maintenance costs, currently in the golden period of safe operation. Different from the early extensive construction model of developed countries, China’s new water conservancy and hydropower projects are universally equipped with ecological facilities such as fish passages, fish crossing devices and layered water intake structures. This development model that balances functional value and ecological protection is a proactive choice for China to learn from the developed countries’ lesson of “pollution first, treatment later”.
Three Gorges Five-Level Ship Lock
The Three Gorges Ship Lift, the world’s largest and most technically challenging navigation structure, was fully constructed by CEEC Gezhouba Group.
2. The Core Criterion of Dam Construction and Demolition: Suitability for National Conditions
Dams themselves have no inherent right or wrong. The fundamental judgment standard is whether they adapt to the national development stage, protect people’s life and property safety, and coordinate ecological protection. China and the U.S. have adopted different development paths based on their respective national conditions, but both aim to achieve safer, more efficient and more sustainable water resource utilization.
In the construction of hundreds of water conservancy and hydropower projects, CEEC has always adhered to the concept that a qualified dam is never a simple stack of steel and concrete. It bears the life and property safety of downstream people, underpins the national energy lifeline, and undertakes the responsibility of protecting the ecological future of river basins. China’s hydropower construction never pursues empty quantitative “world firsts”, but effectively underpins national energy security and people’s livelihood stability.
There is no one-size-fits-all standard for dam construction or demolition. Every country makes choices based on its own development needs, resource endowments and social responsibilities, which embodies the pragmatic wisdom of major countries. At the same time, CEEC has promoted the iterative upgrading of global hydropower technology by popularizing core technologies innovated in the Three Gorges Project, such as high-strength concrete construction, concrete crack prevention and giant hydroelectric unit installation. These technologies have been applied to key domestic projects including Xiangjiaba, Wudongde and Baihetan Hydropower Stations, as well as international projects such as Pakistan’s NJ Hydropower Project, Argentina’s Condor Cliff Hydropower Station and Angola’s Caculo Cabaça Hydropower Station. It has contributed to high-quality hydropower development along the Belt and Road and laid a solid foundation for the global clean energy transition.
3. U.S. Large-Scale Dam Demolition: A Passive Choice Under Practical Dilemmas
The U.S. dam demolition campaign is not a negation of dam engineering value, but a rational trade-off between operational risks, maintenance costs and ecological restoration in the post-infrastructure era.
3.1 Aging Dams and Out-of-Control Safety Risks
According to the National Dam Inventory maintained by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers (USACE), the U.S. has about 92,000 existing dams, with a total of about 2,350 dams demolished in a century, accounting for less than 3% of the total. The demolished dams are mostly small, abandoned, inefficient and high-risk old facilities, while core backbone large dams are all retained. The average age of U.S. dams reaches 65 years, with more than 70% operating for over 50 years, and nearly 2,500 dams listed as high-risk facilities. Dam break accidents have increased year by year, and the funding gap for dam maintenance has reached nearly 40 billion US dollars. In this context, maintenance is more expensive than demolition, and retaining old dams brings greater safety risks.
3.2 Functional Failure of Traditional Dams
Most small dams built in the early stage of the U.S. served traditional industries such as milling and mining. With the transformation and upgrading of U.S. industrial structure, these dams have long lost their functions of power generation, irrigation and water supply, becoming abandoned “dead dams”. The annual maintenance cost of these idle dams far exceeds their practical benefits, resulting in a serious waste of social resources.
3.3 Mainstream Demand for Ecological Restoration
Old dams in the U.S. have long blocked river fish migration routes, changed natural water temperature and hydrological conditions, and aggravated river sedimentation, causing continuous damage to river ecosystems. Nearly 60% of U.S. dam demolition projects take ecological restoration as the primary goal, aiming to restore the natural connectivity and ecological balance of rivers.
Since its completion, the Three Gorges Dam has withstood the test of impounding extraordinary floods.
4. Conclusion: Divergent Paths with the Same Sustainable Goal
China’s active construction and optimized operation of dams, and the U.S.’s targeted demolition of old risky dams are targeted measures based on their respective development stages and practical needs. China supplements infrastructure shortcomings and supports energy transformation through scientific hydropower construction while emphasizing ecological protection. The U.S. eliminates hidden dangers and repairs ecological damage through demolishing backward and inefficient old dams. Different paths reflect the precise adaptation of major countries to their own resource governance, and both move towards the sustainable utilization of water resources and harmonious coexistence between humans and nature.
樱花号文章内容来源于网络，只做分享，不修改内容中任何文字。发布者：小樱，本文标题：Divergent Paths of Dam Construction and Demolition in China and the U.S.: Differences and Rationality，本文地址：https://www.yinghuahao.com/archives/50050，转载请注明出处！
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