Environment Monitoring Station at Three Gorges Starts Operation

An environment monitoring station has started trial operation in Badong County of central China's Hubei Province to monitor the environment and ecology in the Three Gorges reservoir area.

The station is the second of its kind China has built in the reservoir area of the giant Three Gorges water control project on the Yangtze River, where natural disasters like landslides are frequent and serious.

As construction continues on the world's largest hydro-electric power project on the middle reaches of the Yangtze, concern is mounting over possible negative impact that the work may have on the ecology in the river, especially in the gorges area.

The project, with an estimated price tag of 203.9 billion yuan, includes the building of a 1,983-meter long and 185-meter high dam and installation of 26 generating units with a combined generating capacity of 18.2 million kw and an annual output of 84.7 billion kwh. A total of 1.2 million local residents that are affected have to be relocated.

Situated on the Three Gorges and upstream of the dam, Badong County has the most complex terrain along the Yangtze and suffers frequent landslides.

The new station, financed by the Yangtze River Water Conservation Committee and built by the Yangtze River Academy, is meant to help speed up the work of construction and relocation of people inside the planned reservoir area, improving the environment and preventing natural disasters.

Equipped with advanced technologies including aero-remote sensing and telemetry, the station is capable of collecting data from the reservoir area, so as to facilitate decision-making for the Three Gorges project.

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