The Three Gorges project on the Yangtze river in China

Taming the mighty 6300 km long Yangtze river in south China was never going to be easy. Its history is littered with catastrophic flooding events that have destroyed lives and livelihoods and caused untold economic loss. The proposal to build what will still be the world's largest flood-control dam at the Three Gorges site in the river's mid-section was put forward as long ago as 1919. Wars and revolutions delayed the start until 1993 and completion is not now scheduled until 2009. This paper describes the planning and design of the £15 billion project and reports on construction progress to date. It highlights in particular the difficulties experienced in assessing the scheme's benefits against its costs—not least the need to relocate and re-skill over one million people.