The Evolution Of China's Yangtze River | Rivers And Life | TRACKS

paper was light gold in medieval times [Music] i want tobacco sugar [Music] that everything we thought we knew about the world might turn out to be completely wrong [Music] the yangtze river holds the key to china's future flowing over 6 000 kilometers from its source on the tibetan plateau to its shanghai delta it's the most used waterway in the world and one of the most deadly in the last century alone its floods have killed over 300 000 people now man has struck back with an engineering project designed to corral the river's destructive forces and bring it firmly under human control the three gorges dam is so large it's visible from space designed to produce enough electricity to power a tenth of china's total needs the dam feeds the frenzied expansion of inland mega cities such as chongqing the fastest growing urban centre on the planet but this progress has come at a huge cost upstream of the dam the three gorges region has been drastically altered and some two million people forced to flee their homes [Music] downstream at the mouth of the river the impact of the dam is eroding the coastline at an alarming rate threatening the very foundations upon which shanghai's booming economy is built this massive push for growth is risking environmental disaster china's greatest river faces a critical new challenge [Music] china is witnessing an economic growth the pace of which the world has never seen old and young rich and poor its people have endured much in the name of progress many have benefited from the country's new wealth others have been left behind less willing or less able to buy into the dream but relentlessly the dream goes on driven by the communist party's guiding idea personal sacrifice for the greater good not only the people who are made to conform to this vision of the future so too is the landscape [Music] the story of the yangtze river is the story of modern china it's the starkest example of the government's quest to control nature in its pursuit of progress but the yangtze is not a river to be toyed with it has the power to make and to break this country it always has [Music] for generations the yangtze has fertilized the crop which feeds the world's largest population china's rice fields flourish on the nutrients which the river provides for on its course from mountain to sea the yangtze feeds off the surrounding landscape collecting vast amounts of mineral rich sediment in its waters when it reaches the flat lands the yangtze floods distributing its fertile silt across the land [Music] today the floodplains of the yangtze river basin produced nearly half of all china's grain and cotton but while the river gives it also takes away the annual flooding of the yangtze has often posed a deadly threat to those who live near it most recently in 1998 a flood crest 53 metres high surged down river submerging an area the size of new zealand and destroying 5 million homes [Music] who is a farmer whose house lay directly in the path of the yangtze's fury in 1998 our village was the first to be flooded from the beginning of the village all the way down there the water flowed through the village and covered all this land we had to travel by boat and all the buildings were submerged as the waters forced 14 million people to flee for their lives the government declared a state of emergency the soldiers and the police came to our rescue they rescued our families they used helicopters boats and lifeboats to get most people out [Music] the total cost of the 1998 flood topped 30 billion dollars bolstering the belief that something drastic had to be done to protect the people from floods [Music] this is how the government proposes to solve the problem of the yangtze flooding with the barrier of the three gorges down standing 185 meters tall and over two kilometers wide this gargantuan structure is china's largest building project since the great wall [Music] now in its final stages of construction the dam will create a 5 trillion gallon reservoir hundreds of meters deep and 650 kilometers long holding back the waters which have caused such devastation in the past [Music] the idea for the dam goes back a long way in the 1950s the communist leader maozi tung was a wholehearted supporter of building the largest hydroelectric dam in the world he talked of surprising the goddess of wu gorge by creating a huge man-made lake between the deep canyons but it wasn't until 1994 after mao's death that the project got official approval and the people's republic of china ordered the damning of the yangtze to begin it was to be one of the most ambitious and controversial engineering projects in history twenty thousand people work tirelessly round the clock in a race to meet its engineering deadlines so far the costs have topped 25 billion dollars but many workers paid the ultimate price over a thousand have died in the building of the dam has been involved in the project since the beginning and is chief engineer at the site today government experts like sugan claim that the dam allows them to control the river's flow reducing downstream flooding and potentially saving hundreds of thousands of lives by building this dam we have reduced the likelihood of flooding from once every 10 years to once every 100 years if the 1998 flooding reoccurs this dam would make a huge impact the residents below will not be affected few dispute that the dam will be able to control the flow of the river but it might at the same time be creating a threat of flooding worse than anything that's gone before because the three gorges region is an earthquake zone and this concrete mega structure is built on a seismic fault line the danger of trapping such a vast reservoir in a seismically active region has been a cause of major concern and though the government claims the risks are small the dam was built with these dangers in mind in this area earthquakes are rare an earthquake of more than six on the richter scale would only happen once every ten thousand years but this dam is designed to cope with an earthquake as strong as level seven but if the science is wrong and an earthquake makes the dam fail the effect on the 75 million people living downstream would be catastrophic what's more some experts claim that the dam might actually cause an earthquake the sheer weight of the reservoir could stress the earth's crust to danger levels such events have been recorded even in areas with no previous history of tremors but the scientists are calculating that the risk of earthquake is small compared to the benefit the dam offers and so far the scientists seem to be right since the dam was built the rains have come and gone and though there's been some localized flooding downstream the waters have been contained loss of life has been at a minimum but saving lives is just one of the reasons this dam was built just as important is that it's crucial to china's industrial ambitions [Music] the three gorges dam is designed to tame the yangtze transforming it from wild river to one of the most navigable and profitable waterways in the world before the dam was built the yangtze's current was so strong that large river traffic had trouble getting upstream the dam has changed that controlling and diluting the flow of the current in its immense reservoir and enabling heavy cargo ships to navigate deep into china's heartland [Music] the huge physical barrier which the dam poses to traffic is counted by the most complex system of locks ever built for ships traveling through these locks it's a five-stage four-hour ride through the cement corridors from one level of the river to the other the system allows ten thousand ton cargo ships to travel two thousand kilometers in both directions along the river's course river traffic on the yangtze is set to increase from 10 million to 50 million tons per year [Music] this water superhighway is revitalizing china's inland provinces where gigantic cities with populations of tens of millions are taking shape the dam not only links these cities to the outside world it quite literally powers their growth by harnessing the river current the dam creates prodigious amounts of electricity crucial to a booming economy this is the largest hydroelectric power plant ever built when it's at full capacity the dam's turbines will create as much energy as 18 nuclear power plants supporters of the dam claim its clean electricity is crucial in cutting carbon pollution and reducing china's dependency on fossil fuels but many people are unconvinced from the outset the three gorges project has caused mass protest the like of which has never been witnessed in communist china to understand what lies at the heart of the protesters fears we must travel upstream into an ancient landscape that has been irrevocably changed to find millions of people whose homes and history have been destroyed by the dam [Music] the three gorges region has long been renowned for its spectacular landscape before the dam this was characterized by 100 meter canyon through which the yangtze river cut its path [Music] today much of the most dramatic landscape has disappeared beneath the rising waters of the dam's 650 kilometer long reservoir change too are the lives of the people [Music] 120 kilometers upstream of the dam the residents of wu shan town have first-hand experience of the huge social upheaval it has caused when the dam first became operational in 2004 water levels in this region rose by 50 meters submerging practically all of old wushan it's a drastic change which the chinese authorities are keen to justify most of the old city is now in the water it's become a spectacular though he lived in the old city chen chi-ying was one of the government officials charged with coordinating the evacuation of its residents so this new city was not completed within just one or two years we had to firstly set a small area to use as a testing point and then move people gradually by now we have around 30 to 40 000 migrants living in this new city today the reinvention of buchan continues as the last remnants of the old town are destroyed to make way for the new the government claims that this change is good bringing wushan into the 21st century many locals disagree some still cling to their old way of life tending their shrinking farmland among the ever encroaching high-rise blocks but in a country where public protest against the dam has been forcibly suppressed these people's voices will be drowned out too this empty field behind will also be developed as part of the new city it'll be used up very quickly this will be a community plaza in the future these farmers homes stand directly in the path of progress and in the end they'll have no choice but to move for in china all land is owned by the state citizens lease their properties from the government on a long-term agreement but the authorities can renege on the deal at any time and if they wish submerge entire cities for the sake of creating a new china so far the rising waters have engulfed a staggering 13 cities 140 towns and over 1 300 villages up to 2 million people have had their homes repossessed in the name of progress one in five have been moved to different provinces where dialect climate even diet are different many more have watched their livelihoods disappear along with their homes [Music] tanzia lan owns a charter boat service operating from wushan docks today she ferries the tourists who flock to see what's left of the beautiful gorges along the yangtze and its tributaries a few years ago however tialan would have been a living part of the landscape which is now underwater remember you thought i could handle before we opened this tourist boat company we owned a family inn in chandi chong and we were farming when the three gorges reservoir began to fill sia land's farmhouse was among the first buildings to be submerged as the waters rose around her she was relocated to a new home upon the hill it was to be the first of many moves to avoid the rising tides we've moved three times haven't we once in 1997 when the river was cut off and once in 2003 and then once more in 2005 we had to move everyone and everything it involved a lot of cost and effort despite her personal trials the government seized sielan as a success story she's made the most of the opportunities and financial compensation offered by the authorities to create a new life for herself not everyone has adapted so well many older people are unable or unwilling to take advantage of the retraining which is available and a lifetime working the land leaves them ill-equipped to deal with the confines of urban living even those who have bought into china's vision of the future find it difficult to forget the past i do miss my old home a little i can't forget the time when i used to farm and run the family in the memories of serving guests those days were really relaxing [Music] it's not only recent history which has been wiped away by the rising waters so too has the ancient past the yangtze river basin is the traditional home of the great dynasties and kingdoms of old asia the natural barrier created by the river made it an important political boundary and the scene of many historic battles the three gorges region is particularly rich in dynastic architecture many emperors built great temples on the steep river banks [Music] when the water levels began to rise the chinese government funded a 125 million dollar project to save the most important sites from being submerged in what's been described as the biggest historical salvage operation ever entire buildings were meticulously catalogued and moved piece by piece to higher ground [Applause] but many of the most important relics could not be saved because they lay embedded in the very landscape which was to be submerged before the building of the dam the government commissioned a major archaeological survey of this area was chief coordinator of the project in the wushan region much of his research focused on the bar people an ancient civilization that lived on the steep slopes of the yangtze and its tributaries some two thousand years ago the most impressive evidence of ancient bar culture is to be seen in the cliffs high above the river how the bar people managed to lay their dead in their final resting place is a mystery exactly why they did so is also unknown there are two explanations the first is that the bars descendants wanted to honour their ancestors and so buried their bodies in a high place the second explanation is that they did it to prevent vandalism the bar people couldn't possibly have imagined that ultimately it wouldn't be thieves who would steal their ancestors remains but the river itself when the waters began to rise in 1998 archaeologists were just beginning to develop a better understanding of the cultural wealth of bar civilization but their discoveries came too late to stop the flooding while some coffins have been rescued and removed to museums many more have simply been submerged in total over a thousand archeological sites have been lost as the waters have risen [Music] [Applause] but the unique heritage of this region has never been more crucial to its survival as the rich farmlands on the lower river banks have disappeared under water so too have people's livelihoods [Music] the government sees tourism as providing a replacement income and has poured money into enticing visitors to the three gorges region using its history as a unique selling point one of the most popular tours is a trip up river traditional style [Music] before the three gorges reservoir was created parts of the yangtze and its tributaries ran too shallow for heavy cargo to sail the river's length big ships had to be dragged upstream by hand men known as trackers were employed to pull barges along using nothing but human effort and heavy rope today tourists pay for this picture postcard experience of life on the old yangtze upstream however a new china is emerging to replace the old a china characterized by mega cities and mega progress [Music] this country is urbanizing faster than anywhere in history and the yangtze is at the heart of this massive social change some people are embracing the changes others are struggling to keep pace as is the river itself [Music] [Applause] [Music] 650 kilometers upstream of the dam at the tip of the three gorges reservoir is the mountain city of chongqing symbol of china's brave new world [Applause] in the last 10 years the area covered by the city has more than doubled so too has the population now the municipality of chongqing is home to a staggering 30 million people and rising this is the fastest growing urban centre on the planet to keep pace the city map needs to be redrawn every three months chongqing is at the forefront of what the government calls the great western development the three gorges project is just one part of this multi-billion dollar strategy to revitalize china's heartland as well as investing in roads bridges and dams the government must create some 24 million new jobs every year just to keep the country's ever-increasing population in work in a region where so much has been sacrificed to make way for progress a booming economy makes up for distress and appeal [Music] one of those at the cutting edge of the government's development plans is ying ming shan he's the founder of the leafan sedan factory employing 9 000 workers with an annual turnover of more than a billion dollars imprisoned in the 1970s for being an advocate of capitalism today ming shan is 24th on china's rich list he's held up as a shining example of the new entrepreneurial spirit which the government now wants to encourage sometime we are able to produce motorbikes and cars here these liffan products are sold to around 128 countries worldwide you can buy leaf and motorbikes even in the uk the three gorges dam has been the cornerstone of yingming shan's success it provides the route by which his factory's products can reach the international market before the dam was built large river traffic could only reach chongqing in the rainy season when melting ice and monsoons meant the yangtze ran deep and fast through the city but the building of the dam and its huge system of locks allows ships to travel to and from chongqing all year round of course the main benefit which the yangtze river provides is comedian shipping the cost of shipping is very very cheap what's more before the building of the dam the electricity supply to chongqing was extremely unreliable yin had to factor power rationing into his business plan the stop three ensure four campaign meant that every week there would be three days without electricity to ensure four days with it but there are no power cuts now because of the three gorgeous power station [Music] today the hydro power produced by the dam provides the whole city with cheap reliable electricity to feed its growth [Music] this commercial wealth attracts no fewer than half a million new citizens to chongqing every year [Music] they come in search of a better life though it's not always easy to find [Music] wedged between the city's bustling port and commercial center is the shenzhen district where the bang bang bang live and work [Music] this 100 000 strong crew of porters literally bear the city's weight on their shoulders [Music] arriving in droves from rural areas with no skills and little education they acquire the cheapest of tools a bamboo pole and some rope which they use to earn a living around the city port it's this bamboo pole called bang bang in chinese which earns the porters their name their services are hired by everyone from businessman to tourists to move all kinds of goods between ships and dry land originally from a countryside village hushen moved to chongqing two years ago and has been working as a bang bang man ever since because chongqing is located high on the mountainside with bumpy roads bam bam is used to help people carry things some people have a lot of luggage which they cannot manage to carry themselves this is why ban ban exists though he carries more than his own weight in goods shane earns little more than seven dollars a day after sending a few dollars home to his parents he supports his wife and two children on what's left living in one of the poorest areas of the city shen shares his rented flat with his sister and her family to keep living costs low this is the bathroom and there's the kitchen four adults and four children are crammed into this tiny living space yet even this is an improvement on shen's previous standard of living in the countryside he sees it as the first step on the road to a new future for his family i traveled over 200 kilometers to chongqing in the beginning i did it to survive my previous living conditions were very harsh now we are here for our children to provide them with better living conditions and education the bang bang men are living testament to a common belief that the future of china belongs to those who seize opportunity but as they strive with every step to improve their lives few realize that the economic boom which provides their opportunity is poisoning the river upon which they depend chongqing is just one of 200 cities that get their water supply from the yangtze these massive urban areas produce vast amounts of domestic and industrial waste 25 billion tons of which is dumped straight into the river every year [Music] pollution levels on the yangtze have reached an all-time high the situation has been made worse by the three gorges dam the economic growth helped by the dam has dramatically increased the amount of pollution created by cities like chongqing now the authorities struggle to keep pace with the development that threatens to choke this river and its people [Music] is an environmental scientist who campaigns to protect the yangtze from the effects of pollution the yangtze river area is an industrial development zone the most common sources of water pollution are firstly effluent from factories second is domestic sewage third is agricultural pollution few people are brave enough to report the environmental crises faced by the river in the past dangming has received death threats for speaking out but on the yangtze the evidence speaks for itself as this river absorbs more than 40 percent of all china's waste and it's not just the main waterway that's suffering over a third of the yangtze's major tributaries are also seriously polluted the problem is clearly evident in the suburbs of chongqing this stream is called clear water stream but now you can see it's permuted approximately sixty thousand to eighty thousand tons of sewage enters this stream every day this stream flows into the jarling river which then flows into the yangtze 15 kilometers downstream in the past people assumed the yangtze was too big to poison as any toxins were flushed away by the 900 billion tons of water that flowed through the river every year but the reservoir created by the three gorges dam has altered that current while the speed of the water on the river's surface has increased the velocity of the flow beneath has fallen to practically zero the river can no longer carry waste away from the city and it now accumulates in a stagnant reservoir a polluted yangtze spells disaster for the local population this river provides drinking water to 400 million people that's one in every 15 on the planet the polluted water has been blamed for unusually high rates of cancer and birth defects among people who live near the yangtze [Music] though the government insists yangtze water is safe to drink udong ming still chooses to hike four hours every week to draw his own supply from a mountain spring this water is very natural it comes from the rain and is filtered through the forest it's spring water it's very good but spring water is a luxury the poorest urban masses of china simply cannot afford long hours and hard labor leave no time for water gathering neither do the people know how much the waterway they live along has been damaged this is true for every kilometer of the river's course as it leaves chongqing forging its way downstream towards the east china sea it becomes ever more apparent that the yangtze is overused and under threat the threat is so severe that it's causing the river to fail in its age-old function of feeding the people it's even causing the river to eat away at the shoreline potentially destroying the very cities it has helped create [Music] one third of the way along its seaward journey from chongqing the yangtze comes up against the gigantic physical barrier of the three gorges dam the effect of the water flow meeting this structure is like a speeding car hitting a concrete wall the river and all that's carried along in its waters are stopped dead in their tracks [Music] the dam is a feat of engineering of which the chinese government is very proud tourists are welcome to the site to marvel at what's nicknamed china's new great wall [Music] during the official tour visitors are told the success story of the building of the dam but deep inside this structure a different story is emerging revealing a massive flaw in the three gorges plan [Music] for while the water can still continue downstream through the dam the same cannot be said about the life-giving silt carried in the river's flow [Music] the yangtze is one of the most sediment rich rivers in the world it is silt which gives the river its murky brown color and deposited by the current it has shaped this landscape for thousands of years special silt valves are built into the dam wall to allow the sediment to flush through but the sheer amount of silt presents a huge technical challenge the system struggles to cope as an average of 140 million tons of silt are trapped behind the dam every year at this rate sediment buildup in the bottom of the reservoir will raise the water levels upstream severely increasing the threat of flooding in chongqing there is even talk of yet again forcibly resettling a million people from this area to higher ground out of harm's way but it's at the end of the river's course that the most dramatic ill effects of the trap silt become apparent thousand kilometers downstream of the dam the city of shanghai sits at the mouth of the yangtze delta a glittering testament to china's economic growth this bustling port is built quite literally on the wealth of the river over two-thirds of the city's foundations are built on silt deposited here by the yangtze over thousands of years [Music] yangshi lun is a geologist who leads a research project on silk levels in the yangtze river much of his research is focused on the island of chong ming [Music] lying north of shanghai city centre right in the middle of the yangtze river channel this entire island owes its existence to river silt wasn't any chance 50 years ago this place was covered by water there were no plants growing here the reason it exists now is because of silt from the yangtze river once the silt piled up to a certain height plants began to grow today the wetlands of chongming are a protected conservation area incredibly rich in wildlife they provide a crucial stop-off point for migratory birds traveling from the southern to the northern hemisphere they are also a vital breeding ground for many aquatic animals but only a fraction of the yangtze silt wetlands are given over to nature on shanghai's mainland urban development has taken over as china's economic capital shanghai is growing fast its delta is one of the most densely populated regions on earth [Music] boasting some of the most expensive real estate in the world this city already has nearly twice as many high-rises as new york and continues to build them at an extraordinary rate the government hopes that the river will continue to replenish the coastline providing the new land needed for expansion but there's a flaw in the plan there isn't enough silt for the job [Music] our research shows that between 2003 and 2006 some 140 million tons of silt was trapped in the reservoir that's about 60 percent of all the silt in the water satellite readings show the tidal wetlands are in danger of disappearing because of sediment trapped in the three gorges dam rather than bulking up the valuable shoreline the yangtze is now eating away at what's already there up to four square kilometers of coastline has already disappeared due to coastal erosion protecting what's left and planning for the future will be a costly business it's a sound headed to go where you can shanghai's plans of reclaiming more land will be very difficult to achieve we probably need to revise this plan and introduce new methods to protect the silt for example building a breakwater embankment it will be more expensive because we must build it stronger and higher than before yeah [Music] it's not only shanghai's landmass which is disappearing so too is its river wildlife shanghai fish market is a chaotic testament to the quantity and variety of fish life that the yangtze river supports eighty percent of all china's freshwater fish are caught at the river delta here in shanghai the industry is worth 700 million dollars a year but in recent years there's been a dramatic downturn in profits between 2005 and 2006 fishing yields at the mouth of the yangtze fell by nearly a half the vast majority of the fish that are caught today are less than one kilogram in weight while overfishing has undoubtedly contributed to the decline of fish stocks so too has the building of the three gorges dam tsuyong ping is a scientist at shanghai's water research center he believes that the loss of silt plays a huge role in the decline of fish the speed at which the wetlands are being formed has slowed and this has caused the wetlands at the yangtze delta to shrink the loss of these wetlands has a direct influence on fish because the wetlands are an important breeding ground and provide the habitat for young fish to grow the reduction in sediment is also affecting the river's delicate ecosystem it is the silt which feeds the microscopic plankton that forms a vital part of the food chain at the yangtze delta experiments conducted at the water research centre show the decrease of silt is affecting the amount and variety of plankton growing in the waters as certain types of fish-friendly planktons struggle to survive damaging species take over causing blooms of algae which are toxic to fish [Music] but perhaps the greatest threat of all to the river's health is the aggressive commercial development which is swamping its waters the new lock system of the three gorges dam has improved the navigability of the yangtze as a result the amount of river traffic has dramatically increased shanghai is now the world's busiest port transporting over 443 million tons of cargo annually but the incredible increase in volume of ships spells disaster for wildlife any creature trying to cross these crowded waters would be like a rabbit crossing a 12-lane highway the pollution which is a byproduct of the shipping industry also poses a deadly threat the direct effects are noise waste pollution and traffic collisions which cause toxic the indirect effects arise from maintaining the river's shipping route which has to be dredged to maintain the yangtze's deep river pathway a channel 80 to 90 kilometers long 300 meters wide and 10 meters deep has to be done this is detrimental to the fish's habitat the combined effects of silt loss and industrial development have had such a dramatic impact that the government has been forced to impose a seasonal fishing ban on parts of the river even when they are allowed to cast their nets fishermen who used to make a handsome living often return to shore with a meager harvest many native species which were once a common catch are in danger of becoming museum specimens one fish on the brink of disappearing is china's iconic river sturgeon once the staple diet of locals these massive fish can grow up to four meters in length and weigh over 450 kilos recent human development and changes to the environment have seriously affected these fish their numbers have declined rapidly and they are close to dying out to prevent the river sturgeon from disappearing completely the chinese government has funded a major conservation project parts of the wetlands have been made designated breeding grounds and tens of thousands of sturgeon fry released into the water to help replenish dwindling numbers local fishermen are now obliged to return any sturgeon court back to the water but these efforts may be too little too late experts fear that the river sturgeon is destined to suffer the same fate as the baiji dolphin an aquatic species unique to the yangtze which was declared functionally extinct in december 2006. the baiji's disappearance and the drastic decline of fish life in the yangtze are indicative of the failing health of their habitat at shanghai it's clear that the cumulative effects of human intervention along the river's course have made the yangtze sick as it approaches the end of its long journey through the land the river reaches a critical turning point the three gorges dam has caused change and progress along every kilometer of the yangtze's route but it has also spawned a rate of development which the river cannot physically sustain as the trend continues seventy percent of these waters could be classed unusable within five years if the yangtze is ever to recover drastic change is needed but now the path to progress has been set the river and the people who depend on it are trapped in a poisonous cycle of growth it was initially predicted that the three gorges power station would produce enough electricity to meet a tenth of china's needs but the pace of development has exceeded all expectation and demand already outstrips supply to solve the problem yet more dams are planned for the axi the wealth and the future of china continue to depend on this incredible river but what that future holds for the river and its people remains to be seen [Music]

Channel: TRACKS

Views: 441,774

Keywords: TRACKS, tracks travel channel, tracks travel, Documentary movies - topic, full documentary, travel documentary, culture documentary, Rivers, Water, China, Chinese River, yangtze river, Water Power, Powersource, dangerous rivers in the world

Id: E0rV-Ye7Kvg

Length: 51min 32sec (3092 seconds)

Published: Thu Sep 09 2021