The Yangtze River Dam Project

The Yangtze River Dam is the largest hydro development project ever built. It is the backbone undertaking in the development and harnessing of the Yangtze River.

By the time the project is completed in 2009, water levels will be raised by 175 meters or 575 feet and over one million people in 116 towns will have been resettled.

Benefits will be mainly in

flood control
power generation and
navigation improvement

The project is composed of:

the Dam
two power plants
the navigation facilities

The navigation structures consist of the permanent Ship Locks and a Shiplift, sort of an elevator for boats 3,000 tons or less.

The Ship Locks consist of five steps and go both ways. We entered the locks at the end of the second day of our cruise. The kids thought it was so cool, like riding on Starship Enterprise... how the water level dropped, the opening of the gates and passing to the next chamber...

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The next day we visited the Three Gorges Dam project. From the observation platforms, you get a nice view of the entire complex: the ship elevator, power plant and locks.

Also, there is a model that shows the entire thing and it's perfect to explain the kids how our boat "climbed down the stairs" to get to the other side.

This completed our Yangtze River Cruise. From the Dam we drove to Yichang where we spent the rest of the time until our flight to Shanghai that afternoon.