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Navigation Improvement
At present,the 660 km waterway between Chongqing and Yichang cuts through hills and mountain gorges with a 120-meter drop and 139 dangerous shoals and rapids,46 one- way sections, 25 locations where large fully-loaded freighters need winching and the annual one- way shipping capacity is less than 10 million tons. The completion of the project will substantially improve the navigation conditions on the river above the dam,with the navigation channel broadened to an average of 1,100 meters,enabling 10, 000 tons to sail all the way from Shanghai to Chongqing.This improvement can lead to an annual increase in one-way shipping capacity to 50 million tons and a cut in the shipping cost by 37 ,creating conditions for boosting the economy of the Southwest,Central as well as East China.

Development-oriented resettlement
From 1985 to 1993, the government invested 1. 2 billion yuan( $ 137 million)for experimental settlement in the pilot areas. These include 14,000 ha.of newly opened and improved terraced fields, 1500 items of construction of buildings, houses, bridges, roads and water supply projects for resettlement,and the resettlement of 30,000 migrants and 100 factors.All these projects have already achieved tangible economic returns and are well received by the settlers.Valuable experiences have fully proved that the development-oriented policy provides a very good opportunity for the settlers to free themselves from poverty.That's why the construction of the Project has brought about a once- in- the- blue -moon opportunity for economic boom for the regions around the reservoir.

Transferring water from the south to the north
The Yangtze Three Gorges Project. After the completion of the TGP, by taking advantage of the time between 0:00 to 6:00am, when power transmission load is sharply released, the water lever of the TGD will be raised by a dozen meters with water from Xiangxi River, a tributary in the backwater area,enabling the water to run through Shenlongjia to the Danjiangkou Reservoir and further through Henan, Hebei Provinces and then finally to Beijing and Tianjin, consequently, alleviating the water shortage in these areas. The above facts show the transferring water from the South to the North can not only relieve the water shortage in the North, but also reduce the transportation pressure and high demand for farmland caused by transferring coal from the South to the North. It's of great immediate and historical significance for ecological protection and reducing pollution.
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