Water of good quality is one of the basic needs of human life. Worldwide, great efforts are being undertaken for an assured water supply. In this respect, one of the largest water technology projects worldwide is the Yangtze Three Gorges Dam in China. There is a need for extensive scientific and technical understanding of the challenges arising from this large hydrological engineering project. German and Chinese groups from various scientific fields are collaborating to provide knowledge for the sustainable management of the reservoir. In this project description, the Yangtze Three Gorges Dam Project, its goals and challenges, are described in brief, and the contributions of the German research projects are presented.
The construction of the Three Gorges Dam on the Yangtze River in China has a great influence on the ecosystems involved. In order to investigate these environmental effects in the Yangtze catchment area as well as downstream of the dam, Forschungszentrum Jülich has organized a research network for the Chinese and German partners. In the research fields of (1) interaction water/ sediment/contaminants, (2) vegetation/biodiversity, (3) changing land use/erosion/mass movements, and (4) atmosphere, the partners have accumulated a great deal of expertise in handling major issues and also in developing models and recommendations for action. The following provides an overview of the research network and the research tasks. On the German side, five projects in research field (3) have been in operation since 2008. The results are reported in contributions by Ehret et al., Jaehnig and Cai, Schönbrodt et al., and Seeber et al.. Another five projects in research field (1) have started by September 2010. The research tasks undertaken in these five projects are presented below.
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