Gezhouba Water Dam

The Gezhouba Water Conservancy Project is another great dam project on the Yangtze River; this dam will be a conveyance system for the "Three Gorges Project" in the future. This project has elevated the water level of the river 100 meters from the Three Gorges Dam, by 20 meters and the sea-route has been largely improved.

The Project includes the barrage, the power plant, the ship brake, the flood discharge brake, and the fishway, etc. It is currently the largest hydropower station in China. The embankment is 2,561m long and 70m high, which controls a drainage area of 1,000,000kms with total content of 1.58 billion stereos. With 21 dynamos the hydropower station will generate 13.8 billion KWH a year.

The project was carried on by 2 stages, of which the first started in 1970 and has completed now. The navigation was kept unobstructed during the stage. In the second stage the river was blocked and navigation was stopped so as to ensure that the dam could be built smoothly.

The ship lock chamber 3 is 18m in breadth and 120m in length, which allow passenger-cargo vessels and civil fleet less than 3000 tons to pass.