Cost 4 billion to build! Why has the most failed water conservancy project in our country not been demolished so far?

Tech 2023-07-07 21:38:48 Source: Network

If the Three Gorges Dam is the most successful water conservancy project in China, then the Sanmenxia Dam is the most failed project in China. Established at a cost of 4 billion yuan, it has brought abundant harvests to Henan and Shandong, but has caused floods to the people of Shaanxi, and even threatened to blow up Sanmenxia

If the Three Gorges Dam is the most successful water conservancy project in China, then the Sanmenxia Dam is the most failed project in China. Established at a cost of 4 billion yuan, it has brought abundant harvests to Henan and Shandong, but has caused floods to the people of Shaanxi, and even threatened to blow up Sanmenxia.

So what has the controversial Sanmenxia brought to our country?

In the 1950s, the lower reaches of the Yellow River were flooded, flooding 1.4 million acres of farmland in Henan and Shandong, and leaving hundreds of thousands of people homeless. In order to solve these problems, the Ministry of Water Resources of China held a meeting in 1954 and decided to build a dam for water retention and flood storage in the upper reaches of the Yellow River.

At that time, our country also specifically invited Soviet expert Berkshaw as foreign aid.At the beginning, Berkov proposed to build a dam in the Tongguan area with the largest runoff of the Yellow River. However, due to the high soil quality and terrain of Tongguan, if the dam breaks, it will flood Shaanxi13% of the farmland was rejected, so it was rejected. After detailed discussion, it was decided to build the dam in Sanmenxia, Henan.

In 1960, the Sanmenxia Dam began to be put into use. The benefits brought along the route are immediate. For example, before the construction of the dam, there were on average two ice flood breaches every 5 years in Shandong province.After the completion of Sanmenxia, the reservoir stored water before and during the ice flood season, controlling the downstream water flow, and there has never been a similar situation again. The average yield of wheat per unit along the Yellow River in Shandong has increased32 times, the total cotton and grain production in Henan Province has increased by 46 times compared to before, but Shaanxi is in dire straits.

The dam was originally built for flood control, but why did it actually make the people of Shaanxi suffer from floods? In August 2003, a sudden flood occurred in the Wei River Basin of Shaanxi Province, during which 200000 people were forced to leave their homes and large areas of farmland and villages were submerged, resulting in direct losses of up to 1 billion yuan.

Mr. Li, a taxi driver from Xi'an, Shaanxi, bluntly stated in an interview that the Sanmenxia Dam should have been blown up long ago. Why is this?

When Sanmenxia was built, Huang Wanli, a famous water conservancy expert in China, had strongly opposed it. He believed that the establishment of Sanmenxia would lead to flood relocation, that is, to transfer the downstream flood to the upstream.

According to statistics from the Shaanxi Water Resources Department, after the completion of the dam, a total of 137 floods occurred in the Wei River Basin from 1965 to 2008, an increase of 50% compared to the original, and direct economic losses exceeded 200 billion yuan. Because Sanmenxia has silted up all the sediment of the Yellow River in Shaanxi.

In February 1962, the sediment accumulation in the reservoir area reached 1.53 billion tons. After the riverbed was raised, the water flow of the Wei River could only flow to places where people lived without entering the Yellow River. So after the devastating flood in 2003, many people in Shaanxi couldn't breathe a word of anger when they mentioned Sanmenxia.

So how did the problem of floods in Shaanxi be solved? In 1966 and 1968, relevant departments added two new tunnels and four pipes on the dam to allow the accumulated sediment to be discharged from the tunnel. Subsequently, multiple improvements were made.

In 2001, the Xiaolangdi Dam was built in the lower reaches of the Yellow River, fully learning from the lessons of the Sanmenxia Dam, and a large number of sand discharge holes were built to jointly regulate flood and sand control with the Sanmenxia Dam, slowly restoring peace to the Yellow River basin. So here comes the problem.

Why has the Sanmenxia Dam been controversial since its construction, but has not been demolished yet? In four words, the advantages outweigh the disadvantages. From the perspective of the project itself, there were significant problems with the water conservancy engineering scheme designed under the leadership of Soviet experts at the beginning of the construction of Sanmenxia.

The Soviet expert was not familiar with the geological characteristics of the Loess Plateau, nor was he aware of the potential hazards of the Yellow River sediment. Coupled with the limitations of the era at that time, people blindly worshipped the authority of experts and disregarded the voices of opposition. Eventually, they built a dam that could only control water and not discharge sediment, with a design flaw.

In addition, the damage caused by the construction of the Sanmenxia Dam to the surrounding environment has been severely underestimated, resulting in the salinization of large areas of land, inundation of farmland, and damage to the ecological environment.From a social perspective, the construction of dams involves many immigration issues, which have brought considerable pain to the immigrants in the reservoir area. These questions continue untilIt was only in the 21st century that a more appropriate solution was obtained.

Why is the sedimentation in the reservoir causing the riverbed of the Yellow River to rise, and the flood disasters in the lower reaches of the Wei River posing a serious threat to the safety of local residents' lives and property?

However, the benefits it brings to our country cannot be ignored. For example, Henan and Shandong firmly oppose the explosion of dams, because the Sanmenxia Reservoir can bring 200 million yuan of income to Henan every year, playing a huge role in industrial water use and farmland irrigation, and is still a local tourism card.Due to the existence of the Sanmenxia Reservoir, Shandong has also avoided the risk of a crisis and will not agree to demolish the Sanmenxia Dam.

Which perspective do you support more in front of the screen?

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