Is China at Fault over Fault?

China's quest to conquer the environment and provide water to its people may be causing geological damage. A NY Times article published in Feb 2009 discusses if the 2008 earthquake was caused by one of China's many reservoir/dam systems. The earthquake accounted for 80,000 deaths in the Sichuan province. The scientists in the study argue that an earthquake along that line was going to happen, but the excess weight of the reservoir may have had enough force to initiate the movement hundreds of year before nature would have seen it.

The article sites reports out of China that many scientists knew this was a possibility, but some still point to examples to say a reservoir has never caused this strong of an earthquake. Well, there's a first time for everything.

China's environmental challenges include providing energy to its people and suitable water. The system of dams throughout China is an effort to serve these needs. If there has been any sort of rush to build, then there is a chance that the seismic affects were not fully taken into consideration.

Most scientists think that conditions along the fault line were right for an earthquake to happen at some point, but that it would likely be well in the future. None of this was made public to the people living in the area. According to the article, the force of the reservoir was 25 times that of normal geological force in that area.

Building dams along fault lines is risky business, but so it allowing people to die if they cannot get adequate water. China's population forces the government to make some hard decisions. The people need energy and the people need water, but at what cost?

China's environment, unmanipulated, cannot support its population growth. In a country that supports 25% of the world's population but with only 7% of arable land there are obvious challenges. China has maintained a push towards building their economy around export trade and to do this, you must concentrate the people in cities. These cities still need to eat, so you need people able to grow the necessary food and then comes the water. Cities place a high demand on their water source, and in general, nature has not provided enough for the Chinese population density within many of its cities. Add in the pollution issue and your water supply drops.

Did China know that a reservoir along the Beichaun fault would increase the risk of an earthquake in such a relatively short amount of time? If they did, when were they going to find it appropriate to notify the people? The Chinese government recognizes that population growth and ultimately control is a major problem facing the country, can it be said that they risk "natural disaster" as a means to limit population? It's probably a stretch, but I would not want to be in their shoes and face the many challenges of an enormous population, unchecked environmental chaos for nearly 50 years, water shortages, energy crises and all while you try to grow into a super power.

China may have known the risk of the dam, likely that it was at least thought of as a possibility and if so should have at least notified the people of the possibility. At least then, people could have opted to leave or turned to more earthquake friendly building.