China plans to construct world’s largest dam on Brahmaputra river in Tibet

China is planning to construct a brilliant dam on the Brahmaputra River in Tibet which can dwarf the Three Gorges Dam, the most important hydroelectric energy challenge on this planet. The dam is predicted to supply triple the quantity of electrical energy that the Three Gorges Dam produces at 300 billion kilowatts. This potential challenge has raised critical political issues for India, on prime of the grave environmental issues.
The proposed construction will likely be laid over the Brahmaputra River, simply earlier than the river leaves the Himalayas and enters India, at a top of 4900 toes, the world over’s deepest and longest canyon. It is situated near the Indo-Tibet border at Arunachal Pradesh.
China is planning a mega dam in Tibet in a position to produce triple the electrical energy generated by the Three Gorges, the world’s largest energy station, stoking fears amongst environmentalists and in neighbouring India https://t.co/sip7uVPuDj pic.twitter.com/xVMhlGT95Q— AFP News Agency (@AFP) April 14, 2021
The proposed challenge is talked about in China’s 14th Five-Year Plan, which was launched in March at an annual congress of China’s prime leaders and lawmakers. However, the plan doesn’t have any particulars hooked up to it but, together with timeframe or price range.
The Brahmaputra River is named the Yarlung Tsangpo in Tibet. The river already has two different tasks constructed on it, with six extra both within the planning levels or below development. However, the tremendous dam, which might be the most important hydroelectric energy plant on this planet when constructed, can be a way more large challenge in scale.
The Project’s historical past
In October 2020, the native Tibetan authorities below China signed a “strategic cooperation agreement” with EnergyChina, a specialised development firm with regard to hydroelectric tasks.
After a month, the top of EnergyChina, Yan Zhiyong, partially revealed the challenge ‘Medog Dam’ to the youth wing of China’s ruling social gathering, the Communist Youth League.
Sharing his enthusiasm about “the world’s richest region in terms of hydroelectric resources”, Yan Zhiyong defined that the tremendous dam would draw its electrical energy from the massive drop of the river at this explicit part.
Serious issues raised concerning the challenge
The proposed challenge has raised some critical political issues for India, with analysts noting that the Chinese Communist Party is in a major place to regulate the water provide of a lot of the Indian subcontinent.
Brahma Chellaney, an acknowledged geo-strategist writes, “Water wars are a key component of such warfare because they allow China to leverage its upstream Tibet-centred power over the most essential natural resource.”
The Brahmaputra mega-dam, which is to be inbuilt a seismically lively space susceptible to earthquakes, will likely be a “ticking water bomb” for communities residing downstream, warns Chellaney.
“The expanding water war is clearly part of China’s integrated, multidimensional strategy against India, which seeks to employ all available means short of open war. Its unconventional war is profoundly impacting every core Indian interest,” Mr. Chellaney wrote.
There are additionally grave environmental issues related to this challenge, partly due to the legacy of the Three Gorges Dam which displaced 1.4 million inhabitants upstream.
“Building a dam the size of the super-dam is likely a really bad idea for many reasons,” stated Brian Eyler, a program director on the Stimson Center, a U.S. suppose tank.
In addition to being identified for its seismic exercise, the realm additionally incorporates distinctive biodiversity which might be severely threatened by the challenge. The dam would block the migration of fish and sediment circulation which makes the soil fertile throughout seasonal floods downstream, Eyler stated.
Tempa Gyaltsen Zamlha, an environmental coverage skilled on the Tibet Policy Institute, famous, “We have a very rich Tibetan cultural heritage in those areas, and any dam construction would cause ecological destruction, submergence of parts of that region.”
“Many local residents would be forced to leave their ancestral homes,” he stated, including that the challenge will encourage migration of Han Chinese employees that “gradually becomes a permanent settlement”, additional eroding the historic and ethnic demography of Tibet.
In response to this tremendous dam thought, India has floated the prospect of constructing one other dam downstream on the Brahmaputra River so as tp shore up its personal water reserves.