Those Dam(n) Dams!
The world’s largest dam is a hydroelectric dam. Hydroelectric is the generation of electricity
using water flows. The name of this dam is The Three Gorges Dam. This dam in located in China,
It is on the Yangtze River. Its exact location is by the town of Sandouping, located in Yiling
District, Yichang, Hubei province, China. The Three Gorges Dam is the world's largest power
station in terms of installed capacity. This dam is 1.4 miles which is 2.3 kilometers it is 607 feet
tall and five times larger than the Hoover Dam which is located in the U.S. This dam used 21
million cubic yards of concrete; this structure is also a world record because of the massive size.
This dam was built in stages all together it took 11 years. The first stage was from 1992 to 1997
and the second stage was from 1998 to 2003. The Three Gorges Dam took up so much money
the economy was so bad, no jobs little pay for the jobs that were available, little or no housing
were available to people so many were forced to relocate, to be exact 1.3 million people were
forced to relocate. Before the dam was built they have an estimated amount of 300,000 people
being killed by river floods from the Yangtze River. The believed that the dam will protect 15
million people as well as 1.5 million acres of farmland. This dam provides 3 percent of the
counties energy. Before the dam was built people around the river witnessed death or
destruction of property and land. After the building of this rive many people’s lives and
destruction of land or property were no longer in danger. The dam’s reservoir water level sits
at 456 feet above sea level, and it's expected to rise quickly as year’s progress. This is good that
it is holding all of this water but the fact that the dam will soon flood is not good. They said the
dam to flood 574 feet above sea level. The dam’s reservoir is 40 miles long; if this dam was to
flood or when it does flood it will flood over a thousand towns and villages. This dam has a
reservoir so big that dozens of architectural and cultural sites disappear under it. The Three
Gorges Damn affects many species living in the river; it threatens the lives of the baiji dolphin
and also the Siberian canes, as well as many other animals. Many animals depend on this river
for survival and with the toxins being released into the water from the dam animals lives are
slowly but surely decreasing. There are a total of forty seven rare or endangered species in the
Three Gorges Dam, these animals are protected by Chinese national law. The government plans
to preserve the Rivers Dolphins and other endangered species by creating natural reserves and
artificial spawning programs. This means that these endangered species will be preserved by
the government in an uncontaminated location. This river is like a big machine since it produces
energy you already know that it is letting go some type of smoke or something of that sort so
that is already pollution. From researching further information I have found that the dam
releases toxins into the water that also pollutes the river water and harms the animals. The
difference between a lake and a reservoir is a lake is a large body of water surrounded by land
and a reservoir is a large or artificial lake that is used as a water supply. So in other words a lake
is part of the earth and was always there unless it was man made and a reservoir is always man
made and is used to store water for the use of man. In this way this topic could be related to us
and be future orientated at the same time. The largest un-dammed river in the world is the
Amazon River. It is in the mouth of the Atlantic Ocean. It runs through three countries which
include Colombia, Peru, Brazil, and runs through several cities which include: Manaus, Iquitos,
Belém, Leticia, Amazonas, Santarém and many more. The Amazon River is used for many things
by people, it is used as a drinking source, a fishing spot, and even a bathing hole for some
people or “natives” as stated in my research. It is also said to be a good transportation method,
for both goods and people. The Amazon river is not dammed at the moment but it is in danger
of being dammed the amazon river is the second biggest river in the world located in south
America, it sits at 2.1 million square miles. Since it is so big and runs through so many countries
and towns in that country if the Amazon River was to flood it would take so many lives. And
even though they probably don’t want to dam the river they couldn’t take the risk in means
that this river might flood over. The Amazon River is being polluted everyday by people who
use it as a trash can but not only is it being polluted by them but it is also being polluted by
companies and industries. Since a point source of pollution is water pollution, or pollution on its
most basic level, it usually comes from a single, “discrete” place. After figuring out what this is I
can say that the pollution that is being portrayed upon the Amazon River is a non-point source
of pollution. After all these questions on dams I can say there would be a few benefits to
building a dam on a river, onto not building a dam on a river. In other words I will be explaining
the negatives and positives of building a dam on a river. Starting with negatives we know from
the paper that a dam being built on a river can 1. Pollute the water 2. Let go toxins into the
water 3. Harm and possible cause animals to become endangered or extinct and finally it takes
up much space, takes time to build and takes up a lot of money and room. When we talked
about the first dam we saw that it took the space of many houses and many people were
forced to relocate, these are a few out of the many negative effects on a dam being built on a
river. Though there are many negative effects. There is also many positive ones too. Dams can
be used to store water for later use, it can be used to stop and prevent flooding, so it can be
used for safety. It can also be used as an energy source as we save in one of the previous
examples the dam provided three percent of the energy in china and even though that is only a
little bit, you never no maybe in the future that three percent will rise to something higher.