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The Bohai Strait, an important sea passage in northern China, is facing an ambitious renovation plan. Some experts have proposed that a dam could be built in the strait to turn the Bohai Sea into a huge freshwater lake. As soon as this idea was proposed, it immediately sparked a heated discussion in society.
Proponents see it as a millennium plan to change the water landscape in northern China, while opponents question its feasibility and ecological impact. So, what are the pros and cons of this ambitious plan, and is it really worth it?
Let's take a look at the original intention of building the Bohai Dam. Northern China has long faced severe water shortages. As an important grain-producing area in China, the North China Plain needs a large amount of water for agricultural irrigation every year.
With the acceleration of industrialization and urbanization, the demand for domestic and industrial water is also growing. Traditional methods of water development and allocation have been unable to meet the growing demand for water. Therefore, finding new water sources and opening up new water diversion channels has become a top priority in northern China.
It is against this background that the idea of the Bohai Dam came into being. The Bohai Sea, located between the Liaodong Peninsula and the Shandong Peninsula, is the largest inland sea in northern China. It is connected to the Yellow Sea, and the salinity of the seawater is high, making it difficult to use directly. However, if a dam is built in the strait to isolate the Bohai Sea from the open sea, and fresh water from the surrounding rivers is brought in, the Bohai Sea may gradually desalinate and eventually form a large freshwater lake.
It is estimated that if the Bohai Sea is completely desalinated, its freshwater resources will reach 1.7 trillion cubic meters, equivalent to the storage capacity of more than a dozen Danjiangkou reservoirs, enough to alleviate the water pressure in northern China.
In addition to desalination of seawater, the Bohai dam is expected to perform a variety of other functions. The dam can be an important transportation link between Shandong and Liaoning. The construction of high-speed railways and highways at the crest of the dam will greatly shorten the transportation distance between the two places and promote regional economic integration.
The dam can also take advantage of the difference in sea level to generate electricity, becoming a new clean energy base. In addition, after the completion of the dam, the Bohai Sea will no longer be affected by marine tides, which is conducive to fishery farming and port construction. Overall, the Bohai Dam will not only solve the regional water problem, but will also bring huge economic and social benefits.
However, the Bohai Dam is an unprecedentedly large project, and it faces many challenges in terms of technology and management. First of all, it is not easy to thin salt water. The existing annual runoff of rivers in the Bohai Sea region is only about 100 billion cubic meters, while the Bohai Sea contains as much as 1.7 trillion cubic meters of seawater.
It may take decades or even hundreds of years for the existing river water to be diluted by the existing river alone. In order to speed up the desalination process, some experts have proposed that water from the Yangtze River and the southwestern rivers can be diverted into the Bohai Sea. With 1000-200 billion cubic meters of water being diverted from the south every year, coupled with the amount of water from the rivers around the Bohai Sea, it is expected that the Bohai Sea will be desalined in a relatively short period of time.
However, the south-to-north water diversion project, especially from the southwestern rivers south of the Yangtze River, is more difficult in terms of engineering technology. According to the concept, 1-2 large canals will need to be built to divert water from the middle and lower reaches of the Yangtze River and southwest China to the North China Plain, and then into the Bohai Sea. This requires overcoming topographical barriers and crossing the Yellow River and other major rivers, and the project is huge and complex.
At the same time, it is also necessary to consider the impact on shipping and the ecological environment in the middle and lower reaches of the Yangtze River. If too much water is diverted, the water level of the Yangtze River will drop and the channel will be silted, which will affect the navigability of the Yangtze River. Therefore, the South-to-North Water Diversion Project should also be scientifically demonstrated, and overall planning should be taken into account to ensure ecological security.
In addition to the issue of desalination of seawater and water transmission lines, the Bohai dam also needs to consider flood control and navigation. In order to ensure the safety of the dam during the flood season, it is necessary to build a large flood gate on the dam to discharge the peak flow of rivers entering the sea, such as the Yellow River. In normal times, the flood gate can regulate the water level of Bohai Lake and prevent salt water from backing up.
However, the opening of the flood gate will affect the navigation of the inner lake and the open sea. To this end, the dam also needs to be equipped with locks and ship lifts to facilitate the passage of all types of ships. Large ships and military vessels, in particular, may also need specialized passages.
How to rationally arrange these navigation facilities, not only to meet the economy, but also to take into account national defense and security, is also a problem that needs to be considered in the design.
Overall, the Bohai Dam is a grand project with both pros and cons. From the perspective of regional development, it is expected to fundamentally alleviate the bottleneck of water resources in North China, and provide a strong water resource guarantee for the coordinated development of Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei and the construction of Xiong'an New Area.
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