Abstract
In China one speaks not of dams and their heights but of reservoirs (shuiku) and their capacities. Beijing claims to have over 80 large reservoirs (storage capacity over 0.1 km3), but the municipality’s surface water systems are dominated by two: the Guanting (capable of many literal translations into English, but perhaps most closely, ‘Officials’ Office’), controlling over 90% of the Yongding River catchment in the west, and the Miyun (‘Dense Clouds’) controlling 88% of the Chaobai River catchment in the northeast.
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Notes
- 1.
When I visited the reservoir in 1974, we were told that it had been built on the principle of the ‘three simultaneities’ (synchronised design, construction and operation) in order to speed up its construction. With a sense of relief, the hydraulic engineers who were our hosts noted that it had held up quite well, except for termite damage. Nonetheless, Sternfeld (1999:130), citing Chinese sources, lists 11 major repair projects that were carried out between 1964 and 1985, which she claims were mostly due to deficiencies in planning and construction. In some cases, however, it is difficult to separate design flaws from upgrading of standards in light of new information from nature.
- 2.
Beijing Shi 2005: 25. Different sources provide slightly varying dates for the duration of the drought, beginning either in 1997 or 1999 and ending either in 2006 or not yet ended.
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Nickum, J.E. (2012). Officials’ Office and Dense Clouds: The Large Dams that Command Beijing’s Heights. In: Tortajada, C., Altinbilek, D., Biswas, A. (eds) Impacts of Large Dams: A Global Assessment. Water Resources Development and Management. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-23571-9_11
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