AYESHA RASCOE, HOST:
The Chinese government has said it's moving ahead with building a series of dams that will eclipse anything it has built before. The massive hydroelectric project will help the energy-hungry country meet its climate goals. Chinese officials say the project, which begins high up on the Tibetan Plateau, won't have a major impact on its neighbors, but that's little consolation to India, just 20 miles downstream. Mark Giordano teaches geography and water conflict at Georgetown University. He joins me in studio. Welcome to the program.
MARK GIORDANO, BYLINE: Thanks for having me.
RASCOE: This river is the highest in the world, and it drops an incredible 17,000 feet into these high-walled canyons. The Grand Canyon is only 6,000 feet deep. Can you tell us a bit more about the river and how China proposes to dam it?
GIORDANO: This is one of the longest rivers in the world. It connects with the Ganges River and, by volume, is considered to be the third-largest after the Amazon and the Congo. China is the largest dam builder in the world. It has been building dams on the Tibetan Plateau for some time. But this current dam that's under consideration is by far the biggest. It would be a major hydropower producer, which China wants for its energy needs.
RASCOE: India is immediately downriver from this site. What are their fears? Is there a concern about potential conflict over the water, like, if China wanted to stop water from flowing?
GIORDANO: This dam is not designed to hold water. If you think about the images you've probably seen of the Colorado River, the Hoover Dam...
RASCOE: Yeah.
GIORDANO: ...Those dams are to block water behind them, to divert water out for irrigation. The idea here is not to take the water out, but to channel it through this tunnel to generate the hydropower, and then it goes back in the river. India still does have something to be concerned about. Depending on how the dam is constructed, it could block the water at certain times, which means it'll change the timing of the flow. So that could mean that it would compound flooding in India, or it could, if they cooperated, possibly lessen flooding problems that they have now.
RASCOE: Does India have any say in what China does?
GIORDANO: They don't have any say, actually. For all of China's rivers that cross international borders, it has consistently acted unilaterally. There's an international law that's vague and not enforceable that could have a role, but doesn't here.
RASCOE: Your expertise is in geography, and you've studied water border wars. Now, the river starts in this area known as the Tibetan Autonomous Region. Is there a possibility that this dam, at this size, could destabilize the region?
GIORDANO: The area where this dam is built on the Tibetan Plateau borders the Indian state of Arunachal Pradesh, which China still calls Southern Tibet. So China claims this area. One of the advantages for China building this dam, as well as the other dams it has on the Tibetan Plateau, is it's putting roads, it's putting cities, it's putting infrastructure into the Tibetan Plateau right up against the Indian border, helping it with its own territorial claims. So there is a potential conflict issue. I think it has more to do with the border dispute than the water directly.
RASCOE: The land - more with the land and less with the water.
GIORDANO: Yeah, I think that's more of the issue. And there are real concerns also about the geologic stability of the region. This is right where two plate boundaries come together. The Himalayan Mountains are still moving. It's tectonically active. So the Indian government has real concerns about how stable the geology is. What happens if there's an earthquake? Could that destroy the dam? Could that cause flooding downstream? At the same time, India is also planning lots of dams on its part of the river as well, but that's a real issue.
RASCOE: How many dams has China built, and how important are dams to China's politics?
GIORDANO: China has built more dams than any other country in the world. Some people bring up the question of will China actually do this? And I think an interesting way to look at it is with comparing Chinese political system to the U.S. political system. If you look at every Chinese premier and president since the reform started in 1979, almost every one is either a hydrologic engineer, electrical engineer or geologist, all people that work on dam construction - compared to the United States, where every leader in that same amount of time has either been a lawyer or a businessperson. It's a very different way of looking at the world, and, you know, if you've been trained in building dams, you probably will build dams.
RASCOE: That's Mark Giordano. He is a professor at the Georgetown University School of Foreign Service. Thank you so much.
GIORDANO: Thank you. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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