Physical Sciences and Mathematics Commons^™

Dam Impacts On The Changjiang (Yangtze) River Sediment Discharge To The Sea: The Past 55 Years And After The Three Gorges Dam, Z Yang, H Wang, Y Saito, Jd Milliman, K Xu, S Qiao, G Shi

VIMS Articles

In 5 recent years ( 2000 - 2004), the Changjiang ( Yangtze) River has discharged past Datong (600 km from the river mouth) an average of similar to 250 million tons (mt) of sediment per year, a decrease of more than 40% since the 1950s and 1960s, whereas water discharge at Datong has increased slightly. Water and sediment discharge data from the upper, middle, and lower reaches of the river suggest that the reduction of the Changjiang sediment load has occurred in two phases between 1950 and 2002: following the closure of the Danjiangkou Reservoir on the Hanjiang tributary in1968 …