Geography: China's growth as an industrial power and the associated economic prosperity has created a dramatic increase in demand for electrical power. The dam's hydroelectric generators would provide an inexpensive and clean source of electricity. Some question why such emphasis is being put on the dam's power generation when there is currently a surplus of power available elsewhere in the country (MacLeod).

Damming the river would also make it safer for ship navigation - the Yangtze is currently much too shallow for significant shipping traffic. Increasing the water level across the waterway would allow larger ships to travel further inland, where natural resources have not yet been tapped. This furthers the radius of new economic development beyond the area of the dam itself.

Much of the dam's area is currently farmland, and the peasants that worked the land were given public assistance to help with finding new homes. Most have been resettled into cities, however, and the promised new jobs have not yet started to develop so they survive on public assistance. Older people are especially finding it difficult to adapt from providing for themselves via the land to the new urbanized lifestyle. By some estimates 30 to 40 percent of people displaced by previous dam projects are still not adequately resettled.

The surrounding Yangtze valley is a notoriously dangerous floodplain, and the Three Gorges Dam would provide much improved flood control. Floods in 1931, 1954, and 1998 created tens of millions of refugees and killed thousands. Some environmentalists believe that the dam will not have the capacity to adequately manage all the floodwaters in a peak-flow year.

The Chinese government touts the area surrounding the new reservoir as underdeveloped, but this may be inaccurate. Many believe that the area is already near or at its maximum sustainable population since the land can only provide so much. Many of the people being resettled are being sent into areas that are as environmentally sensitive as the area that will be flooded. Deforestation is already a problem in the area, and this is long before much of the resettlement has begun. Local herbalists complain that the best roots and shrubs now require great skill to attain, while they were plentiful only 20 years ago.

The planned development around the dam would also greatly increase soil erosion, just as it has done at other developed sites around the world. Currently eighty percent of the land in this area is experiencing soil erosion and fifty percent of that is serious erosion. The erosion not only causes the forest size to decline but also causes tons of sediment into the Yangtze River each year. The deforestation and the soil erosion cause landslides that would also be a large problem for surrounding communities.

The increased soil erosion and drastic changes to the water flow impact how sediment is deposited in the riverbed. Local officials are concerned that their existing ports on the river will become clogged with sediment much faster than projected; this happened with the Sanmexia dam, also located in China.

The Yangtze is also a primary destination for the region’s wastewater. Currently there are 3,000 industrial and mining enterprises, which release more than one billion tons of wastewater annually into the Yangtze River with nearly fifty different kinds of pollutants. The Three Gorges Dam would take away the amount of agricultural jobs and lead many industrial sites to open only pumping up the number of pollutants being pored into the river. The communities around other dams in China regularly dump wastewater, sewage, and oil into their reservoirs. China requires polluters to clean their own wastewater, but these regulations are not well enforced. There are plans for many jointly funded wastewater treatment plants, but it is not clear whether this will have a measurable impact on protecting water quality. However, the river's natural capacity to purify itself is not infinite (Qing, 163). These pollutants cause the water to be rated as undrinkable. This directly affects the surrounding communities. Not only can they not drink the water but the fish and wildlife are dying off as well. The pollution problem is already there but the Three Gorges Dam will only make this problem larger.

The Yangtze River offers a unique habitat for the White-flag dolphin. This dolphin is one of only four fresh water dolphins on earth. It is one of the most endangered species in the world with only 100 living in the Yangtze. It is expected to be extinct in less than 20 years. Zoologist have called for military assistance to try to catch and relocated these dolphins to try to prevent their extinction. The effects of the dam in the White-flag dolphin’s habitat are expected to be tremendous. Due to environmental pressure of special interest groups in support of the dolphin, China has spent $11.5 million dollars on five natural reserves to be built to protect the dolphin from going extinct. The survival of many other species of fish downstream from the plant has been called into question.The environmental impacts may extend beyond the Yangtze River basin. Damming the river may change the flow of fresh water into the Sea of Japan. Fresh water flows create a protective layer separating seawater from the atmosphere, which allows heat to escape from the sea. This would most likely increase the temperature over Japan, further complicating the effects of global warming (“Major Developments).