Since the establishment of the People's Republic in 1949, China has built over 25,000 large (higher than 15 meters) dams for irrigation, flood control, hydropower, or multiple purposes.  China has more hydropower resources than any other country (92,170 MW as of 2003), yet this accounts for only 24% of developable resources and 14.8% of total power generation in the country.  Three Gorges Dam, which was completed in October 2008,  is the world's largest hydropower dam in the world and has the capacity to produce 22,500 MW of electricity. China plans to increase its total hydropower capacity to 180 million kW by year 2010 and 300 million kW in 2020 (World Watch Institute, 2007).

The water supply, hydropower and flood control benefits for which China's dams were built have been dramatic.  However, because most of these projects were not optimally designed for environmental performance they have also exacted pervasive damage to freshwater, riparian, and estuarine ecosystems that support the local communities that depend on rivers and their flood-plains for their nutrition and livelihoods. These uses of river systems for fishing, recessional agriculture, grazing, fuelwood and fiber, and the land uses that depend on natural recharge of the groundwater systems, are vital to the economic and social well being of China’s rural communities, as they are in Africa and Latin America.

As the nation that has built the earliest, largest and most water projects in the world, and as the nation with the most ambitious future dam construction program, China is truly the premiere hydraulic society of the world.  At the same time, the Chinese Government has declared its intention to “build a resources-conserving and environmentally friendly society”. Thus, it is an ideal location to examine the potential of dam reoperation and is poised to become a global laboratory and showcase for a new era in water project design and operations as it implements national policies to restore the “healthy life of rivers” in “harmony between man and nature.”