Demographic Impacts of the Three Gorges Dam

Abstract

The Three Gorges dam has produced the world’s largest planned human displacement and resettlement, involving the relocation of over 1.3 million people across a 16-year period to 2008. This mega-resettlement has radically changed the population geography of the reservoir area and other affected regions. Although rural migrants account for only 42% of the total, the problems associated with their displacement and resettlement are much greater than those associated with relocation of urban residents. This chapter maps out temporal movements and the spatial distributions of the migrants (especially rural) displaced by major resettlement approaches. It provides an understanding of the circumstances of the migrants’ livelihood reconstruction at the early transition stage after displacement.