Environmental problems in the three Gorges reservoir area

The Three Gorges Project is the backbone project for harnessing and developing the Yangtze River, and it is also an ecological project conducive to optimizing the ecological environment. After the impoundment of the Three Gorges Project, the flood control function has been brought into full play, and the ecological benefits have become increasingly apparent, especially by controlling flood flow, reducing siltation in Dongting Lake and increasing discharge in dry season, which has played a very good role in improving the river course and shipping in the middle reaches of the Yangtze River. After all the 26 generating units of the Three Gorges Project are put into operation, compared with coal-fired power generation, it is equivalent to reducing carbon dioxide emissions by 654.38 billion tons per year. The CPC Central Committee and the State Council attached great importance to environmental protection and construction in the Three Gorges area. The monitoring results of multi-level environmental monitoring network show that the environmental quality of the Three Gorges Project construction area and the resettlement area is generally good, and soil erosion is effectively controlled. The water quality of the main stream of the Yangtze River in the Three Gorges reservoir area is generally stable, which is mainly better than Grade III water quality. The soil erosion in the upper reaches has been effectively controlled, the sediment in the reservoir area has decreased, and the sediment deposition in the reservoir is less than expected; The reservoir-induced earthquake maintains a low intensity level and does not affect the dam safety; Rare aquatic and terrestrial plants in the Three Gorges have been effectively protected. The geological disaster control project in the reservoir area is progressing smoothly and the geological environment is normal. Since the construction of the Three Gorges Project started, the state has invested a lot of special funds for the prevention and control of geological disasters, effectively avoiding and alleviating geological disasters. Since the impoundment of156m, no major geological disasters and heavy casualties have occurred in the Three Gorges reservoir area.

As early as 1950s, the CPC Central Committee and the State Council made arrangements for the environmental impact study and evaluation of the Three Gorges Project. After decades of efforts, experts have put forward many research results and evaluation reports on the advantages and disadvantages of the Three Gorges Project on the ecological environment. With the improvement of China's environmental protection laws and regulations and the development of eco-environmental science, the environmental impact assessment of the Three Gorges Project is deepening. From 65438 to 0984, the state listed the ecological and environmental impact of the Three Gorges Project as a major national scientific research project. From 1986 to 1988, the State Council organized 55 experts in eco-environment, social economics, immigration, water conservancy, sediment, medicine, electric power, meteorology, shipping, cultural relics and geology, and made a concentrated study on eco-environmental issues. Before the Three Gorges Project was submitted to the National People's Congress for deliberation 199 1 year, the EIA Department of China Academy of Sciences and the Yangtze River Water Resources Protection Research Institute jointly compiled the environmental impact report of the Three Gorges Project, and the State Environmental Protection Bureau organized the review of the report in February of the following year. The report makes a scientific conclusion on the advantages and disadvantages of the impact of the Three Gorges Project on the ecological environment. "The main beneficial effects are in the middle reaches of the Yangtze River. After taking appropriate countermeasures and measures, the main adverse effects can be greatly reduced. Eco-environmental problems do not affect the feasibility of the project. Generally speaking, the impact of the Three Gorges Project on the ecological environment is that the advantages outweigh the disadvantages. At the same time, a number of ecological environment construction and protection projects to reduce negative impacts have been proposed and included in the project budget. " Repeated argumentation provided a detailed scientific basis for 1992 National People's Congress to vote for the approval of the Three Gorges Project. What needs to be pointed out in particular is that the CPC Central Committee, the State Council and relevant parties attach great importance to different opinions in the process of argumentation and have adopted different opinions on many key issues. Therefore, the repeated demonstration process of the Three Gorges Project is a model of national democratic decision-making.

Since the construction of the Three Gorges Project, the CPC Central Committee and the State Council have attached great importance to the ecological environment protection of the Three Gorges Project and adopted a series of policies and measures, which have effectively promoted the ecological environment protection in the Three Gorges reservoir area and dam area.

First, the water pollution control in the Three Gorges reservoir area and its upper reaches has been strengthened. 200 1 The Central Committee of the Communist Party of China and the State Council approved the implementation of the Water Pollution Prevention and Control Plan for the Three Gorges Reservoir Area and its Upper Reaches. From 200 1 to 20 10, the state allocated 39.22 billion yuan of treasury bonds for the construction of sewage treatment plants and garbage disposal sites in the Three Gorges reservoir area and its upstream, as well as industrial point source pollution control, ecological protection projects, basic capacity building and ship pollution control. At present, 58 sewage treatment plants and 4 1 garbage disposal plants have been built in the towns of the Three Gorges reservoir area. In order to ensure the normal operation of the sewage treatment plant in the Three Gorges reservoir area, the state has adopted the measure of "supplementing and promoting" and arranged special funds for subsidies to gradually realize the market-oriented operation of sewage treatment. At the same time, vigorously develop biogas construction, implement soil testing and formula fertilization, and control non-point source pollution. It also carried out the prevention and control of ship pollution in the Three Gorges reservoir area and established an emergency mechanism for ship pollution prevention and control in the Three Gorges reservoir area.

The second is to strengthen the management of geological disasters in the reservoir area. On June 5438+ 10, 2002, the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China and the State Council approved the implementation of the Master Plan for the Prevention and Control of Geological Disasters in the Three Gorges Reservoir Area. At present, the second phase of the geological disaster control project in the Three Gorges area has been fully completed, the wading project in the third phase of the geological disaster emergency control project has been basically completed, and the geological disaster prevention and early warning system in the reservoir area has been established, which has guaranteed the safety of people's lives and property and the safety of the reservoir to the maximum extent.

The third is to implement policy adjustment to reduce the pressure on the ecological environment in the reservoir area. In order to reduce the pressure on the ecological environment of the bearing space in the Three Gorges reservoir area, the CPC Central Committee and the State Council have relocated some immigrants in the Three Gorges reservoir area and closed down industrial and mining enterprises with high energy consumption and high pollution. 10.9 million people emigrated (settled in developed provinces and cities along the Yangtze River and coastal areas), and10.5 million relocated enterprises closed down to develop environmental protection enterprises, effectively reducing the contradiction between people and land and industrial pollution in the reservoir area.

Fourthly, the biodiversity protection project of the Three Gorges Project was implemented. According to the arrangement of the environmental impact report and preliminary design of the Three Gorges Project, the biodiversity protection project construction of the Three Gorges Project is mainly divided into two categories: terrestrial plant protection and aquatic organism protection. For more than ten years, the the State Council Three Gorges Construction Committee Office has successively organized and implemented the construction of Dalaoling Plant Reserve in Yichang, Hubei Province, the evergreen broad-leaved forest nature protection project in Longmen River, Xingshan, Hubei Province, the protection project of ancient trees, the rescue protection of Selaginella sparsifolia and Adiantum lotus leaves, and other terrestrial plant protection projects; The Chinese sturgeon nature reserve project in Yichang, Hubei Province and the Chinese sturgeon nature reserve project in the Yangtze River estuary in Shanghai. The rescue center for rare and endemic fish in the upper reaches of the Yangtze River has also completed the demonstration and will be implemented soon.

Fifth, organized and implemented the proliferation and release of rare fish in the Three Gorges Project. Carrying out proliferation and release is one of the important measures to protect fish resources. The preliminary design report of the Three Gorges Project specially arranged the release projects and funds for rare fish. At the beginning of 2005, the Ministry of Agriculture organized and compiled the Implementation Plan for the Proliferation and Release of Rare Fish in the Three Gorges Project, and organized relevant units and provinces and cities along the Yangtze River to release rare fish and economic fish. According to statistics, in 2005 and 2006, * * * released more than 5 10000 rare fish, including about 200,000 Chinese sturgeons and nearly 300,000 mullet. About 270 million important economic fish were released. And strengthen the supervision and monitoring of discharge tracking, effect analysis and evaluation.

Sixth, scientific research and ecological construction have been strengthened. The ecological environment of the Three Gorges is very complicated, and some problems are still unclear at the demonstration stage. It is necessary to study on the basis of monitoring, find problems in time and solve them. In the past ten years, a lot of fruitful research work has been carried out in four aspects: water pollution control research, biodiversity protection research, ecological construction research and environmental monitoring and management research. At the same time, vigorously carry out pilot projects and experiments on ecological governance, and explore effective ways to build and protect the ecological environment.

Seventh, carry out environmental protection work in the construction area. China Yangtze Three Gorges Project Development Corporation strictly protects the environment of the construction area, builds production wastewater treatment facilities in the construction area, afforests the completed construction site in time, and centrally treats the garbage, thus ensuring the quality of domestic water for people in the dam area and protecting the good environment of the construction area.

Eighth, the ecological environment monitoring system of the Three Gorges Project has been established and improved. 65438-0995 Under the organization and coordination of the the State Council Three Gorges Office, more than a dozen ministries and commissions and relevant departments set up an ecological environment monitoring system for the Three Gorges Project to track and monitor the ecological environment problems that may be caused by the Three Gorges Project in the whole process. The monitoring content of the system covers hydrology and water quality, pollution sources, fish and aquatic organisms, terrestrial plants, local climate, agricultural ecological environment, estuary ecological environment, population health, social and economic environment of the reservoir area and many other aspects. The monitoring scope focuses on the reservoir area and extends to the middle and lower reaches of the Yangtze River and even the relevant areas of the estuary; The monitoring method adopts the combination of remote sensing monitoring and ground monitoring station network to realize the space-time monitoring system combining "point, line and surface". In 2002, the construction of the ecological environment information system of the Three Gorges Project was started, which played an important role in providing information services, information sharing, information release, comprehensive information analysis and dynamic information centralized management services. Since 1997, the State Environmental Protection Administration has issued the Bulletin on Ecological Environment Monitoring of the Three Gorges Project at Home and Abroad every year. This journal has now become an important information journal of eco-environmental monitoring across regions, departments and disciplines in China. As long as the media pay close attention to it, we can know the ecological environment and related data in the Three Gorges area in time.

In addition, China's water conservancy, agriculture, forestry, environmental protection, transportation, construction, health and other related departments and industries are also actively carrying out ecological environment construction and protection in the Three Gorges reservoir area, and achieved good results. Before the impoundment of the Three Gorges Reservoir, the bottom of the reservoir was thoroughly cleaned, and the salvage mechanism of floating objects on the surface of the main tributaries was established. The management legislation of the Three Gorges Reservoir is progressing steadily, and the sustainable comprehensive utilization plan of the reservoir is also being formulated. The construction of green belt projects and demonstration areas around the reservoir has begun to take shape; The scientific research topics related to sediment erosion and siltation after impoundment have been included in the national "Eleventh Five-Year Plan" science and technology support plan. In a word, the construction and protection of the ecological environment in the Three Gorges reservoir area have been highly valued by governments at all levels and achieved remarkable results.