This volume translates crucial Chinese documents on a debate currently raging in China on a proposed project that has enormous implications for its environmental, economic, and social impact - the Three Gorges (Sanxia) Project on the Yangtze River. The most massive water resource project ever planned in China and one of the largest in the world, the Three Gorges Project would cost $1.1 billion to build, would necessitate the relocation of 1.1 million people, would flood a 375-mile-long area and thus destroy some of China's - indeed the world's - most beautiful scenery, and would threaten the extinction of a rare river porpoise. The editors seek to place the arguments in a clear and scholarly perspective that helps to make this book a valuable source of information.