I found Pearce’s description of the conflicting hydrological requirements of dams interesting and the risks brought on by these contradictions to be interesting. That dams like those on the Yellow River need to both remain full enough to feed irrigation systems, provide urban water, and generate hydroelectricity, as well as maintain low enough to catch floodwaters while catching floods require them to maintain low water levels, despite the obvious incompatibility of those two goals, leads to potentially dangerous situations. Pearce described the Banqiao Dam disaster in the Henan Province in central China as an example of one such circumstance. The dam had been experiencing a typhoon that raised the water levels and became overwhelmed by the addition of water from an upstream dam burst, until it gave way to 400,000 acre feet of water forming a wave 7 miles wide and 20 feet high. The death total, excluding the aftermath, was nearly 26,000 people. Pearce states that over ten times more were killed by the ensuing chaos and famine. The descriptions of such a devastating incident, and the danger of such incidents happening again, was both compelling and deeply concerning.
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