discussing current and emerging Hydro-power on a policy issues in learning curve brief.policycn.com

The government announced increased research Lu and Shen describe the first three decades of into the vulnerability of hydro- to earth- the People’s Republic as an era of ‘building while quakes in the same breath as announcing a re- designing while surveying’. Now the Chinese gov- cord breaking concrete pour. Is the old gung-ho ernment needs to spend considerable funds on approach giving way to sobriety? maintenance. 41,000 reservoirs are sched- In the next five years, China aims to derive 11.4% uled to undergo repairs in the next five years. of energy consumption from non-fossil sources, The problems are intensified by competition be- up from 8.3% in 2010. According to local plans, tween major hydropower construction and engi- 405 hydro stations will be constructed in Shanxi neering companies. Watersheds have also come Province alone by 2020. under increasing threat of over-development. Against the backdrop of this construction spree, Meanwhile the regulatory environment shows China announced at the 2011 Annual Conference few signs of adaptation. The Dam Safety Regula- of the Chinese National Committee on Large tions, for example, issued in 1991, apply only to Dams (CNCLD) that it would conduct a nation- dams up to a maximum height of 200 metres. As wide survey of key dams and reservoirs. of 2009, there were already 13 dams There are already 87,000 dams in China provid- in China over this limit. China’s ing flood control, power, irrigation and water sup- In December 2011 the China Three poorly ply services. Risk management and safety of this Gorges Group reported that its hydro- large infrastructure stock has rarely been raised. constructed power project had poured an annual dams and An investigative report by Nanfang Zhoumo (南 record-breaking four million cubic 方周末) reporters Lu Zongshu and Shen Nian- metres of concrete. Rather than prais- those that zu revealed details of previously unreported ing this triumph, Xinhua chose to fo- have become dam disasters. This included the collapse of the cus on seismic studies of high dams. dangerous flood spillway of the Sanbanxi dam in southeast Research, it stated, was intensifying after years of Guizhou in 2007, after only 13 hours of operation: as the tempo of hydropower develop- ‘Apparently, there was a problem with the quality ment picked up. neglect are of construction, causing as much as 13,000 cubic like ticking Behind this lay new concern with seis- metres of concrete and rock to wash away, leav- time bombs ing an 11 metre deep pit—the equivalent of a mic vulnerability of dams. Quakes are three-storey building’. concentrated in China’s west, where the incentive to build high dams is greatest. In late Lu and Shen concluded that ‘China’s poorly con- 2009 a senior engineer, Chen Houqun of China’s structed dams and those that have become dan- Academy of Engineering, had publicly discount- gerous after years of neglect are like ticking time ed any links between dam building and quakes, bombs . . . ’ boasting that China’s hydropower resources were Zhou Jianping, chief engineer of the China Hydro- no. 1 in the world. The Xinhua article now noted power Engineering Consulting Group, was frank that 82% of earthquakes occurred in western Chi- in attributing disasters to ‘low standards, includ- na in areas of intense hydropower development. ing inadequately prepared surveys, unscientific Seismic design and research, the article states, design and construction plans, mismanaged con- have reached international levels; an inno­vation struction, absence of quality control and supervi- platform combining ‘production, learning and re- sion, and even fraud in the procurement of build- search’ is taking shape. ing materials’. The ‘tofu buildings’ that collapsed during the May 2008 Wenchuan earthquake Sounds kind of like building while designing while readily come to mind. surveying . . . 14 Dec 2011

© China Policy 2011 information, research and consulting services policycn.com Are China’s dam crises lurking everywhere? discussing current and emerging Lu Zongshu and Shen Nianzu policy issues in China Southern Weekend, 7 July 2011 brief.policycn.com

China has built over 87,000 hydro dams, more Zhou Jianping, chief engineer of the China Hy- than any other country in the world. Hydro dams dropower Engineering Consulting Group, showed and reservoirs perform many functions includ- the audience ten or so photos of different dam ing flood control, power generation, irrigation, accidents. These images, never before shown, and water supply and so forth, but the issue of shocked the audience as a whole, but especially dam safety has always been treated as a taboo reporters from the media. Afterwards, reporters subject. Now, incidents at a number of dams and from Southern Weekend did a great deal of re- reservoirs have cast doubt on the quality of these search, but could find little detail of the incidents projects, but they are rarely reported to the gen- online. eral public. The first picture was of the Ertan Hydropower Shocking dam incidents Station built on the (a tributary of the , in Province), its spillway tun- A survey focusing on key dams and reservoirs will nel was completely destroyed by flood waters. be carried out across China, but the authorities For the laypersons among the audience, it was have yet to disclose details. Given the recent de- especially difficult to imagine how such a solid bates about whether dams and reservoirs have reinforced concrete structure could be washed caused droughts and floods, this plan carries away and broken into pieces like a heap of loose wide implications. sand. As the speaker, Zhou Jianping said, it was The planned survey was announced at the 2011 very fortunate that they found the problem in Annual Conference of the Chinese National Com- time and fixed it, or the Ertan dam would have mittee on Large Dams (CNCLD). Zhang Rushi, been seriously threatened. Deputy Director of the Work Safety Department Another photo caused a buzz in the audience: of the Ministry of Water Resources, made the the flood spillway of the Sanbanxi dam in Jinping announcement and stated that, through surveys County, in southeast Guizhou Province, was total- and field investigations, the study aims to discov- ly destroyed on 26 July 2007, after only 13 hours er the actual condition of China’s hydro dams. of operation. Apparently, there was a problem On June 18, 2011, about three hundred leading with the quality of construction, causing 13,000 experts China’s water resources and hydropower cubic meters of concrete and rock to wash away, industry gathered in Yichang, Hubei Province, to leaving an 11-metre deep pit, or the equivalent attend the Annual Conference held by the CN- of a three-story building. According to Zhou Jian- CLD. The participants included Wang Shucheng, ping, the consequences could have been disas- former Minister of Water Resources and current trous if floods had occurred at the same time and chairman of the CNCLD, and Lu Youmei, a mem- the operators had been unable to close the sluice ber of the Chinese Academy of Engineering and gates. former general manager of the Three Gorges Cor- At the Jinghong dam, built on the Lancang-Me- poration. kong River and lauded as one of the most impor- ‘Dam safety’ was among the most oft-mentioned tant hydro dams in Yunnan Province, the flood words by the experts at the conference. ‘Safety discharge channel twice suffered serious dam- comes first,’ insisted Wang Shucheng. ‘Dam safe- age from floods, once in 2008 and then again in ty should always be put first in the construction 2009. As the picture illustrated, the channel was of hydro dams. We should not be the people who left gaping open as if struck by a bomb blast, with are condemned by history, feeling ashamed and steel bars dangling like withered plants. regretful for what we have done to the mother- Still another incident resulted in casualties: as land and to our people.’ Zhou Jianping explained, the road leading to During his presentation at the CNCLD meeting, the site of the Jishixia dam on the Yellow River

© China Policy 2011 information, research and consulting services policycn.com in Qinghai Province suddenly collapsed one eve- the situation said that the financial cost ofthe ning as a result of silt discharge. Drivers of two mistake was not great, but the time lost remov- vehicles unknowingly drove along the damaged ing the concrete (which had already solidified), road, crashing into the Yellow River. At least eight and re-pouring it, seriously affected the project’s people are still missing. schedule. Poor engineering has also resulted in an accident A 2009 report by the Sinohydro Engineering Bu- at Shaanxi’s Xilongchi hydropower station, which reau 3 Company found problems at several dams. has been in operation for three years. Zhou Jian- Cracks were discovered in section 6 of the Danji- ping said that the magnetic coils of Units 3 and angkou dam (on the Han River, a tributary of the 4 suddenly burst in the process of adjustment, Yangtze). Leaks occurred in the Shiban hydrodam to the alarm of the national electricity authority. structure in Fuling (formerly in Sichuan Province Upon inspection, it was acknowledged that seri- and currently a District of Chongqing Municipal- ous flaws existed in the design and construction ity). Leaks also occurred in the Tianshengqiao of the station. tunnel of the Erlangba hydrodam in Shaanxi Prov- In his speech to the conference, Zhou Jianping ince. Concrete defects have been found in the concluded that the accidents were the result of shiplock of the Three Gorges dam project. In fact, low standards, including inadequately prepared according to a 2006 survey of the Three Gorges, surveys, unscientific design and construction 733 cracks, with a total length of 4,688 meters, on plans, mismanaged construction, absence of both the eastbound and westbound channels of quality control and supervision, and even fraud in the shiplock, have leaked water. But, the survey building materials. All of these factors have con- said, these cracks were subsequently repaired in tributed to the poor quality of dam projects and order to meet the design requirements ‘through compromised the safety of dams. professional treatment.’ As the Chinese media put it ironically, China’s hy- Regulations lag behind reality dropower construction has entered a ‘Great Leap Pan Jiazheng, one of the founders of China’s Forward,’ with the giant power companies dis- hydropower industry and an expert in water re- tributing watersheds and rushing to construct hy- sources, often warned that any errors and over- dropower projects. According to recent news, the sights in dam design and construction would Three Gorges Group is accelerating its construc- compromise the quality of the projects. Dealing tion of four giant hydro dams on the Jinsha River with the aftermath of these problems would be that will generate twice the power output of the more costly, he said, including the loss of inno- Three Gorges if all the projects go into operation. cent lives. This situation worries the older generation of -hy For example on 27 August 1993, the 71-metre dropower experts. As Wang Shucheng explained, dyke in the Gouhou reservoir in Qinghai Province it used to take years to prepare surveys and in- burst, killing 288 people. Back in August 1975, vestigations before construction of a dam began. two large reservoirs, Banqiao and Shimantan, to- Now the job is usually done in a hurry. Especially gether with two other medium reservoirs and 58 worrying, many large projects are being built in small reservoirs in the Zhumadian area of Henan southwest China where the geological conditions Province collapsed one after another, in just a are complicated and the area is seismically active. few hours. Ten counties and towns in Zhumadian For that reason, it will be particularly dangerous were flooded by as much as 5.7 billion cubic me- to build dams without a sound and stringently tres of water, and 26,000 people died as a result. implemented plan, Mr. Wang warned. Dams under construction are also encounter- According to information provided by CNCLD, as ing problems. The Xiluodu hydropower station of 2009, China had built and was constructing on the Jinsha River, for instance, China’s second 5,443 hydro dams with a height greater than 30 largest hydropower dam, has been experiencing metres. Thirteen of those are higher than 200 construction problems since 2010. Engineers and metres. But the ‘Dam Safety Regulations,’ which workers on the site found that, after pouring hun- are meant to govern dam construction in China, dreds of cubic metres of concrete, the template were issued in 1991 and apply only to dams up was incorrectly positioned. A person familiar with to a maximum height of 200 meters. ‘The prob-

© China Policy 2011 2 lem is that the regulations lag behind the reality,’ Source: Zhang Rushi, Deputy Director of the Work Safety Lu Zongshu and Shen Nianzu, ‘Zhongguo daba Department of the Ministry of Water Resources weiji sifu’ [Are China’s dam crises lurking every- told the 2011 CNCLD conference. Because the where?], Nanfang zhoumo, 13 December 2009. regulations are inadequate when it comes to ‘中国大坝危机四伏’, 南方周末, 2009年12月 meeting current needs for dam safety, it is a high 13日. priority that they be revised. http://www.infzm.com/content/61136 China’s poorly constructed dams and those that have become dangerous after years of neglect are like ticking time bombs. According to an ear- lier report about dam incidents entitled ‘Statis- tics and Preliminary Analysis of Incidents with Dams and Reservoirs in China,’ more than half of China’s reservoirs were built between 1950 and 1980, most under conditions known as ‘building while investigating while designing.’ These- cir cumstances led to low standards and poor qual- ity construction. To make matters worse, most are today in a dangerous state of ill-repair after decades of operation. Based on the statistics provided by He Xiaoyan (one of the authors of ‘Statistics and Preliminary Analysis of Incidents with Dams and Reservoirs in China,’ who is now working in the Department of Flood-Control and Disaster Reduction of the Chi- na Institute for Water Resources and Hydropower Research), there were a total of 3,481 dam col- lapse incidents in the 50 years from 1954 to 2003. He Xiaoyan points out that: ‘Inadequate flood- discharging capacity and problems with project quality were the main causes of dam failure and collapse. 96.4% of the reservoirs where these in- cidents occurred were small ones.’ China has become increasingly concerned about dam safety and has repaired and reinforced 9,225 poorly constructed and dangerous reservoirs in the past ten years. In the last three years alone, C¥64.5bn has been spent. In the next five years, 41,000 reservoirs are set to be repaired, requiring large financial commitments from state budgets. As Zhang Rushi said, the preparatory work for the nationwide survey of big dams and reservoirs has already been done. The investigation will now be carried out by the Ministry of Water Resources, together with the State Administration of Work Safety, the State Electricity Regulatory Commis- sion, and the Ministry of Agriculture. Translated by China Policy

© China Policy 2011 3