three gorges dam

speaking of Edward Burtynsky, a video on YouTube of a talk he gave that's on Manufactured Landscapes turned me on to the scale of change caused by the Three Gorges Dam in China.

Here's the clip:

Here's a good summary of the project:

Here's an animation showing the changes the dam has made to the landscape:

Here's a clip in Chinese with a lot of information about the dam, much of which is self explanatory, if you don't speak Chinese. There are some rah-rah shots of the dam, and some animations of how the dam was built:

What fascinates me the most is the underwater cities. Sure, the buildings were destroyed to as not to interfere with ships, but there must be some lower levels of high rises, and some one and two-story buildings they didn't bother smashing. It would be great if someone went down there in ten or twenty years to photograph what happened to the landscape down there.

In fact, I should find out if there are underwater villages in other areas that have been photographed many years later.