Environmental impact assessments of the Three Gorges Project in China: issues and interventions

The paper takes China's authoritative Environmental Impact Statement for the Yangzi (Yangtze) Three Gorges Project (TGP) in 1992 as a benchmark against which to evaluate emerging major environmental outcomes since the initial impoundment of the Three Gorges reservoir in 2003. The paper particularly examines five crucial environmental aspects and associated causal factors. The five domains include human resettlement and the carrying capacity of local environments (especially land), water quality, reservoir sedimentation and downstream riverbed erosion, soil erosion, and seismic activity and geological hazards. Lessons from the environmental impact assessments of the TGP are: (1) hydro project planning needs to take place at a broader scale, and a strategic environmental assessment at a broader scale is necessary in advance of individual environmental impact assessments; (2) national policy and planning adjustments need to react quickly to the impact changes of large projects; (3) long-term environmental monitoring systems and joint operations with other large projects in the upstream areas of a river basin should be established, and the cross-impacts of climate change on projects and possible impacts of projects on regional or local climate considered. © 2013 Elsevier B.V.Xibao Xu, Yan Tan, Guishan Yan

Sustainable development path research on urban transportation based on synergistic and cost-effective analysis: A case of Guangzhou

Urban transportation plays an important role in slowing down global warming and controlling environmental pollution. To explore the sustainable development paths of Guangzhou transportation, the synergies and cost-effectiveness of emission mitigations on CO2 and air pollutants are quantitatively evaluated under different control measures in this paper. The radar chart analysis method, marginal abatement cost curves, and emission mitigation effect normalization are used to identify and evaluate the synergies and cost-effectiveness. The results show that the control measures to adjust transport modes and regulate private cars can achieve significant synergies and cost-effectiveness of emission mitigations on CO2 and air pollutants, and should be implemented as a high priority. In contrast, the control measures to promote the application of electricity, hydrogen energy, and bio-fuel have effective synergies, but with high costs, and should be implemented as a lower priority. Moreover, the control measures to popularize Liquefied Natural Gas (LNG) have good cost-effectiveness, but with poor synergies due to the emission increments of HC and CO. Unless HC and CO emissions can be effectively reduced through the installation of terminal removal devices for air pollutants, the implementation of the control measures related to LNG will remain a low priority