Newsletter No. 60;
IRBMS
Several well-known Chinese hydropower firms
have already made their way into Tibet. The
Zangmu dam is located in the southern Tibetan
county of Gyaca, which has a population of around
17,000. The backer of the Zangmu project,
the Tibet
Generating
Company,
has
started
building a town on the open spaces alongside the
river. The economy here is going to be among the
fastest-growing in Tibet, said businessman Li Hua,
owner of a three-star hotel here.
Great Bend of Tsangpo
(Source: http://greenbuzzz.net/nature/the-biggest-
canyons-in-the-world/)
Before entering India, the river passes Pi (Pe) in This is the celebrated great bend where China has
Tibet and suddenly turns to the north and plans to build the world s biggest hydropower
northeast and cuts a course through a succession project of 40 000 MW capacity and also divert
of great narrow gorges between the mountain water from here to the North China, though China
Gyala Peri and Namjabarwa (Namcha Barwa) in a is currently denying any such plans.
series of rapids and cascades. This is known as Behind the scenes, preparations for hydropower
Great Bend of Tsangpo. The river then turns south development on the Yarlung Zangbo have been
and southwest and flows through a deep gorge constant. In an interview, Zhi Xiaoqian, head of the
across the eastern extremity of the Himalayas with Chengdu Surveying Institute, said that plans had
canyon walls that extends upward for 16,500 feet been drawn up for all of Tibet s major rivers,
(5,000 meters) and more on each side. including the middle reaches of the Yarlung
The huge potential of the Yarlung Zangbo is Zangbo. But a lack of clear policy direction has
concentrated at the Great Bend in Medog County, meant approval for those plans has been slow and
where two or more dams the size of the Three the projects have not commenced. Now the time
Gorges could be built. This is also the most and conditions are ripe. China s energy supply is
spectacular section of the river, where it falls becoming ever more pressured, and there s an
steeply as it makes a u-turn, and is regarded as one urgent need to develop the rich hydropower
of the world s most striking river sections. resources of Tibet, Zhi said.
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Integrated River Basin Management Society