erika,+vaughn,+and+pauls+3+gorges+dam

__ Why We Need The Three Gorges Dam

The most important function of the dam is to control flooding, which is a major problem of a seasonal river like the Yangtze. Millions of people live downstream of the dam, and many large and important cities like Wuhan, Nanjing and Shanghailie lie next to the river. Plenty of farm land and the most important industrial area of China are built beside the river. The reservoir's flood storage capacity is 22 km. This capacity will reduce the frequency of major downstream flooding from once every 10 years to once every 100 years.
 * Flooding**__

In 1954 the river flooded 74,518 sq miles of land, killing 33,169 people and forcing 18,884,000 people to move. The flood covered Wuhan, a city with 8 million people, for over three months, and the Jingguang railway was out of service for more than 100 days. In the event of a recurrence of the 1954 flood that carried 50 billions of water, the Three Gorges Dam could only divert the water above Chenglingji, still leaving 30 to 40 billion m of flood water to be diverted. Also the dam will not protect the large tributaries such as the Xiangjiang, Zishui, Yuanshui, Lishui, Hanjiang, and Ganjiang from flooding, due to the location of the dam.This dam is so post to keep disasters like this from happening. Bosshard, Peter. "Three gorges dam." 6 May 2009 []. Hvistendahl, Mara. "China's Three Gorges Dam: An Environmental Catastrophe?" __Scientific american__. 6 May 2009 [].

Three Gorges Dam Economic help

Three Gorges Dam has given China lots of economic help. One of the resasons is that it has given the Chinese many more jobs. For example, someone needs to sell the materials to build the dam, and since it is so huge, that will be a lot of money. The dam also created jobs for the architecs and builders making the dam. In adittion, it improved China's GDP per capita, creating a much better economy.

The dam also creates clean and efficent hydroelectric energy. This gave nearby companies more money because of tourism, also helping the economy. Yu In fact, the dam itself raised 25.6 million dollars in just one year!!!!!! Overall I definetley think building the dam was worth it.

__ China ____ daily __. 8 May 2009 . __ English.people.com __. 8 May 2009 . __ International Rivers __. 8 May 2009 [].

** Annual Production of Electricity ** || ** Year ** || ** Number of installed units ** || ** TWh ** || 2003 ||   6  ||   8.607  ||  2004  ||   11  ||   39.155  ||  2005  ||   14  ||   49.090  ||  2006  ||   14  ||   49.250  ||  2007  ||   21  ||   61.600  ||  2008  ||   26  ||   80.812[|[37]]  || 2009 ||   26  ||   11.486  ||
 * __ Alternative Energy Sources  __**
 * One good thing about the Three Gorges Dam is it’s the Worlds Largest Hydro-Electrical power station the total weight is 22,500mw and the height is 101m (331ft) **
 * When finished the Dams annual electricity generation will be over 100 THw  **
 * If we took down the dam will have wasted over 180 billion yaun and over 39 billion U.S Dollars **