page_title: Salween River
section_title: Dams
hierarchical_section_title: Salween River / Dams
context_page_description: The Salween, known in China as the Nu River, is a river about 2,815 kilometres long that flows from the Tibetan Plateau into the Andaman Sea in Southeast Asia.
  It drains a narrow and mountainous watershed of 324,000 square kilometres that extends into the countries of China, Burma and Thailand. Steep canyon walls line the swift and powerful Salween. Its extensive drainage basin supports a biodiversity comparable with the Mekong and is home to about 7 million people. In 2003, key parts of the mid-region watershed of the river were included within the Three Parallel Rivers of Yunnan Protected Areas, a UNESCO World Heritage Site.
  The people who live on the Salween are relatively isolated from the rest of the world. The river is only navigable up to 90 kilometres from the mouth, and only in the rainy season.
  The Burma Road was constructed between 1937 and 1938 during the Second Sino-Japanese War and crossed the river at the Huitong bridge. The Huitong bridge was blown by the retreating Chinese army and the river became the frontline from 1942 to 1944.
context_section_description: Since the 1970s, the countries along the river, especially China, have been pressing to build a series of hydroelectric and irrigation dams on the Salween River, some of which would be among the largest in the world if constructed. The dams were proposed to generate more electricity for the growing population of China, help improve the power supply in surrounding regions of South Asia, and to divert water to irrigation in China, Thailand and Burma. As of 2013, China has not ratified the United Nations Convention on the Law of Non-Navigational Uses of International Watercourses which would regulate development, management, and use of transboundary waters such as the Salween.
  However, a series of problems have been associated with dams on the Salween. The Salween is one of the longest free-flowing rivers in Southeast Asia and is one of only two major free-flowing rivers in China. The river supports thousands of species of plants and animals and is vital to the livelihoods of the many native cultures that live alongside it. It provides water for approximately 7-10 million people and supplies irrigation water to low-lying rice paddies abutting the Andaman Sea. Creating dams on the Salween would involve flooding hundreds of villages and towns and the reduced flow on the lower Salween would cause seawater to infiltrate inland, making the lower Salween valley unsuitable for growing crops. Because of poor logging practices in the upstream watershed, the historically silty Salween has become many times as turbid as its natural state. A reservoir on the Salween would fill much faster than projected, reducing the overall lifespan of dam projects. One of the largest problems is also that the dams would not have much positive impact on the people that actually live in the Salween region. There have been many public outcries to damming the Salween, ranging from petitioning to large-scale protests. There is also controversy over the representation of local opinion in the media. Investigative journalist Liu Jianqiang found little support for the dam projects among locals in China, who feared they would not get adequate compensation.
  The damming has even been regarded as a "military thrust against" the native people, specifically the Karen people.
  In 2003, Huaneng Power International Inc. and the provincial government of Yunnan province, China, signed an agreement to build 13 dams and two reservoirs on the lower reaches of the Salween through Yunnan, some of which lie within the Three Parallel Rivers World Heritage Site. One is said to be larger than the widely controversial Three Gorges Dam. In China, the dam proposals served as a watershed movement for a bourgeoning environmental movement, which mobilized in opposition to the project. In response to protests, Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao, who was trained as a geologist, announced in February 2004 a suspension of the dam project until a full environmental review could be conducted. The Chinese Ministry of the Environment also opposes the dams. Ultimately, the Chinese government announced it would reduce the 13-dam project to 4 dams, but controversy continued. In May 2009, Wen again sought a suspension of the project pending environmental review, though one dam was already nearly complete on a tributary river. Analysts believed that the project will continue to move forward after Wen stepped down in 2012 which proved to be the case as extensive plans were revived in China for these and other projects in 2013. The number of proposed dams in the revived plan was reduced from 13 to 5. In 2017, it was announced that, in response to widespread public opposition to damming the Nu River, the Yunnan provincial government intends to focus on protecting and transforming the river into a national park and eco-tourism attraction.
  The Thai and Burmese governments have also entertained proposals for the construction of dams on the river. On April 5, 2006 the Thai and Burma governments signed a $6 billion USD agreement to build the TaSang Dam. Another Thai-Burma project is for the Hatgyi Dam. A feasibili
caption: Salween Delta from space (south is to the upper left)
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