CRW2 Environment
November 16, 2016
Homework from Wednesday, November 16th.
Students: Do you think dam building has more advantages or disadvantages?
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Dam building may be divided between those in favor and those against. Its proponents can argue that dam building helps people to make preparations for drought or flood. In addition, they believe that dam can be used for multipurpose such as hydroelectric power generation, storing water for irrigation, and sightseeing. However, opponents can point out that dam building can destruct ecosystem. People may be displaced from their lives, also, natural habitats where wildlife can freely roam may be shrinking.
Considering Korean climate, I think that it would be better to build dams. Korea is located in Asian monsoon area, therefore, the average rainfall in Korea is higher than global average. However, citizens cannot use enough water because of overpopulation. This results in annual drought in some areas, so If dams are built in these areas, it could effectively control the annual drought. Plus, dams also benefit in the rainy season. The rainy season in korea continues from June to August. During this period, almost 1,000mm rain falls (60~80% of total rain in Korea). Therefore, to prevent flood, dam building is necessary.
Your argument based on Korea’s geographical location and overpopulation seems valid and I agree on that.
I think that there are more advantages than disadvantages to dam building. Firstly, people can store water and use it for agricultural, industrial and domestic purposes. Korea has lots of precipitation, but it is concentrated in the specific season, summer. Dam is effective solution for resolving the unbalance between the insistent demands and temporary supply. It also useful to prevent flooding and droughts, because storage of rains means that excess water is impounded in a dam and used for the water shortage during a drought. Moreover, hydroelectric dams can produce the energy, and this method of energy production is relatively clean without air pollution and danger of radiation exposure. Of course, dam building inevitably lead to the destruction of nature and ecosystem collapse in the surrounding areas. However, modern society requires even more water and energy, and this is the reason why dam building can be justified despite of distinct disadvantages.
Do you think dam building has more advantages or disadvantages?
I think dam building has more advantages than disadvantages in Korea.
First, the main one of disadvantages is environmental pollution such as collapse of ecosystem, declining in quality of water.
Dam building opponents have argued their opinion that based on the environmental grounds.
Although this opposition has been comed, dam has been built continuously in korea due to another environmental problem.
The problem is natural disaster like flood, drought, and so on.
The natural disasters in Korea are larger scale than other nations’ because Korea is blessed with four distinctively different seasons so dam building make profits rather than not. It can also make a profit as hydroelectric power generation, storing water for irrigation, tourist attraction for sightseeing.
However, I think it is a matter of nations.
In the US, dam-building actually make profits, but they demolish the dam if it make big environmental damages..
comed -> come
For human beings, dam building has more advantages than disadvantages. Firstly, we can control water supply for protecting nature disaster. When the village suffer drought because of little rainfall, dam would give sufficient water to people. Without dam, people don’t prevent this event. Drought destroys farmers’ crops and makes them depressed. Once drought happens, it provokes finance bankruptcy. Therefore farmers would have no chance to regain their feet.
Secondly, we can get energy through dam building. This energy is not harmful to nature when it is operated. Of course, when we construct dam, we demolish forest to make a place dam. But hydro energy is less damaging to nature than fuel energy.
Is the energy produced enough amount from dam to be used for living? Dam sometime opens the watergate and releases water. So I think the electricity gain from dam is very small. I could be wrong. Can you show what percentage does the electricity from hydro energy accounts for the whole electricity suppy for me?
Do you think dam building has more advantages or disadvantages?
Dam building was a hot potato in 2008. The president Lee Myungbak holds out for business called ‘Maintenance of the 4 great rivers’ which makes a canal for economic trade. Dam building was involved in this project and 5 new dams were constructed. People who support dam construction argue that it has some advantages: flood prevention, preparation for draught, hydroelectric power generation. However, opponents say that dam construction can cause town submergence and ecosystem disturbance like fish extinction and mutation
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I am favor of dam construction because dam is too useful to oppose. First, dam saves many people from the flood. Korea has a heavy rainy season and torrential rain made deluges. Every summer, news report was mostly about damages from flood. But the frequency of flood lowered after the dam built. Dam can control the flow of the water and store huge amount of rain from the sky. These ability relieved people`s worry about floods. Second, dam water can be used in the dry season. There was a severe draught last year. Especially, GangWon-do where many farm locates took damage from draught and every crops and stocks withered and people suffered shortage of drinking water. Dam did not fully solve the draught but it partially contributed. Stored water in the dam was used for living water and agricultural water. Without dam Korean people would still suffer from damages of flood and draught.
do you think dam building has more advantages or disadvantages?
I think dam building evidently influences human being’s life. In Korea, the president Lee developed ‘ the business of 4 great rivers’ for economic reasons. However, its construction destroyed a lot of ecosystem and many residents should move to another places because of dams.
In my opinion, although there are some disadvantages in constructing dams, dam will be built continuously in Korea because of its functions. Every summer, the natural disaster like flood occurs in large scale in Korea. In that time, the role of dams was important to prevent further damages. Therefore, the necessity of constructing dams will be grown among countries.
I agree with your idea. I also think dam is neceesary for flood prevention.
I agree with your idea. In the case of Korea, we have lots of government debt because of the business of 4 great rivers. However as you said I think we have no choice but to build dam. Dam building is a essential choice to prevent diverse natural disaster.
I think dam building has more disadvantages than advantages. The biggest problem in dam is environment destruction. Dam is made for human’s convenient regardless of animals and plants which live near the dam. In fact, many habitats are destroyed when dam construction is completed. It could have a serious impact on biological diversity. Another reason why I opposite to dam building is its stability. Artificial concrete structure become rusty so that it could not endure water pressure as times go on. Actually many countries have already removed dams. I insist that dams should be absent. Human is small part of environment. We have a responsibility to protect and adjust to an environment. Enhancing city’s irrigation ability is important rather than constructing dams.
It is hard to classify dam as disadvantage or advantage structure. However I am going to focus on the negative sides of dam. Recently I found out that there is a movement against constructing JIRI Mountain dam, which is suppose to supply residents a drinking water. Two points of opponents’ argument are environment and fund. First, dam cause water-bloom that destroys the ecosystem. It turns water green and decreases oxygen in the water. Under water creatures will dye and bad smell will cover the area because of it. Eventually People and animal both will loose their habitats. Mountains are national park which needs to be protected. Even if dam is necessary as disaster prevention, destroying environment is part of disaster too. It’s not reasonable. Second, building dam cost more than billion dollars and it’s all out of taxes. Since tax is from public, government have to be serious about it’s use. Dam is not the only solution of provide comforts to people. Those taxes could be used more effectively in another ways to help them. For example, river improvement project which can control the water levels. Therefore, I totally agree with this opponents about dam issues. I partly admit that there are many advantages of dam, but the value of inevitable sacrifices is above any other advantages. Without dam there will be no sacrifices of nature and economy.
I was impressed by your last sentence, “but the value of inevitable sacrifices is above any other disadvantages.” Although I wrote about the merits of dam building, I came to reconsider my writing after I read your comment.
I found interesting information in the Internet. According to National Institute of Environmental Research, a number of Indigenous fish which lives in different river distinct after 2010 when some dams were built. Invasive species in stagnant water and mutant increased up to maximum five-fold. I agree with the dam construction but we need to consider the reverse side of dam building.
while I am reading your comment, I am shocked by your drawbacks. I didn’t know that dam building is accelerating the water-bloom. Water-bloom is a serious issue I think. And I think we need to find a solution to minimize water-bloom.
Dam building certainly has several drawbacks but those considered, building a dam is beneficial and is necessary in modern world. Although dam construction destroys mountains and rivers, dams at the same time protect them from landslides or flood caused by natural disasters. It is because one of the functions of dams is preparing for future natural disasters. When having a drought, dams let out the stored water and help minimize the damage done. When there is flood, a dam opens the gate and lets swollen water inside, lowering the water level outside of the dam generally.
In addition, certain dams are able to generate electricity and those are called hydro-electric dams. Basically, hydro-electric dams utilize water level gaps inside the reservoir. As water flows to the lower level part (due to gravity) through a pipe line which is connected to a turbine, the power of the flow rotates the blades and this process generates electricity. This can be considered as eco-friendly in that the main resource is water, not coals or fuels that create pollution.
Furthermore, sometimes dams become tourist attractions. There are certain dams that offer cruise ship tour services.
But like all the other things in the world, there are consequences to building a dam such as forced moving of inhabitants, village destruction, water pollution, and a thick fog. Dams generate things but it is only possible after some other things are destructed. In the aspect of ‘creative destruction’, dams seem beneficial but along with supplement policies, dam building can minimize demerits.
Do you think dam building has more advantages or disadvantages?
Over the last few years, many countries have suffered from floods and drought. For these reasons, many countries are constructing dam because many cities were never designed to cope with floods and drought. It seems ironic that the number of floods and drought has been decreased as governments are building dams, somehow our nature is being destroyed in some ways. Dam is like a double-edged sword.
One of the strongest arguments in favor of the fact is that dam building can prevent floods. I agree that the biggest problem is uncontrolled flooding. Many people are losing their houses,crops and so on, because most floods cannot be controlled by person. However, dam building can control floods and many people can avoid natural disaster. On top of that once a dam is contructed, electrictiy can be produced at a constant rate. In addition, dams are designed to last many decades and so can contrivute to the generation of electricity for many years. In this proceess, people can reduce consumption of fossil fuels for electricity production. Lastly, water in dams can be used for irrigation purposes which means that dams can prevent drought.
However, there are lots of people who has negative opinions about dams. They said that dams are extremely expensive to build and must be built to a very high standard. I read some articles about dam and it said that some countries waste tax for building dams. To be specific, build dam is a national undertaking. Generally, a national underataking is much more expensive than private business because there are lots of government official who are commiting an irregularity under the connivance of a superior. On top of that, dam building interferes with natural flow of water through environment. To be specific, it can interfere with natural wildlife migration patterns such as Cyprinid Fish.
On balance, taking everything into consideration, I think that dam building is tough issue to proceed in the short run. However, in the long view, dam building has lots of potential benefits and dam building is a essential choice to prevent diverse disaster.
In my opinion, there are more advantages than disadvantages for dam building. First, because it helps people control water, they can prepare for drought or flood. In Korea, it is raining mostly during summer. So, by storaging rainwater, dam can prevent flood at that time, and provide water in the time of drought. Also, dam helps agriculture. Most rainfall is concentrated in summer time, so, it is very hard to irrigate crops during drought. However, dam building makes it easy to irrigate water anytime. Lastly, dam can be used for hydroelectric power generation. This is eco-friendly energy, so, it doesn’t make any environmental pollution. In conclusion, even though there are few advantages of dam building such as destruction of nature, dam building has more advantages. So, I think we should keep developing dam, as minimizing destruction of nature at the same time.
I think we can not divide the issue in black and white theory, because it has both advantage and disadvantage. If the dam building is seen in a broad view, it is a disadvantage because of environment destroying. In the close future however, the dam building is inevitable in preventing natural disasters like flood or drought. Humans are the one who are building the dam in order to protect human from nature. It is irony that protecting from nature actually harms nature itself. In sum, the issue has complicated sides that is difficult for saying whether it is a plus or minus to both human and nature.
“I think we can not divide the issue in black and white theory”
The question requires you to consider nuance and complexity by analyzing and determining which is greater, advantages or disadvantages. In the end, a decision must be made by policymakers about whether to build or not build a dam in a specific location.
Everything has it’s own pros and corns. However with ‘dam’ agruments it has lots of opinions. With dam argument, which dam building has advantage or disadvatage, I would say that it has lots of disadvantages. When we thing of the ‘dam’ we need to understand the main purpose of that structure. Dam is consturcted to cover the water flood, and for provinding people a water. However, it is sure to make less damage by making flood, but on the other hand, it disrupt a water flow. Water always need to be flow, and they should not get any disturbing things in their way. Dam gives really bad influence to the water course, indeed it could lead more serious problem when they keep go downstream. It means that water could loose its own ability,self-purification capacity. If water could not freely moves they stuck in one place, and eventually, water starts to loose their self-purification capacity and get decay. Moreover, when we build a dam near water, animals can not be safe either, for example when we think of otter, they always build their own dam for their house, but if people made dam artificially, they could not build it, because water doesn’t flow well. Moerover, migratory bird could get serious damage by this, they could loose their own nature house. We could say that dam is only for human’s convinience, of course there are so many good things but still, there are also many ways to replace dam building. Few dam building is good for nature and human, but too many dam building could eventually lead disaste to every creature.
From my point of view, dam building has more advantages than disadvantages. Above all, after water is stored in a particular way, dam provides the water which is available for use. The water is supplied for living and industrial use. In addition, it has been proved beyond doubt that dam prepares for a natural disaster such as drought and flood. The water is used to help a cultivation of land when soil is dry and is stored to minimize the flood damage. Moreover, dam can generate electricity as a hydroelectric power plant. Power is generated by height differences of water when it falls in the dam. For example, Paldang dam and Soyanggang dam of Korea make electric power in this way. In view of the above reasons, I believe that dam building is necessary option.
Do you think dam building has more advantages or disadvantages?
I think that building dam has more disadvantages. It gives much damage to the environment where dam is built. However, it is true that dam building has advantages. Dam produces electronic energy. And it provides a various types of water such as industrial water and water for agricultural use. But, the reason why I think dam building has more disadvantages is environment. The construction of a dam makes environment where is near the dam change. It would destroy the ecosystem.
I think that building dam has more advantages than disadvantages. Even though it can cause disasters such as soil erosion, it gives us more benefits. It is effective for flood, droughts and also provide hygro electricity. Prevention from natural disaster especially droughts is that many people can save their lives from lack of water which is one of most important part of our lives. Three Gorges Dam, for instance, which is the larrgest dam in the world. Important function of the dam is to control flooding, which is a major problem for the seasonal river of the Yangtze. In addition, it discharges its reservoir during the dry season between December and March. This increases the flow rate of the river downstream, and provides fresh water for agricultural and industrial usage.
In my opinion, I don’t think dam has more advantages than disadvantages. First, if dam is constructed, the water in the dam must be static. It causes the contamination of water, soil erosion and the change of weather such as frequent fog. As the ecosystem around the dam is destroyed, many kinds of animals and plants would lose their natural habitat. Moreover, the construction of dam could make the village around the dam submerged. As a result of this, many people who have lived there have their hometown taken and must move other place. Some supporters argue that hydroelectric power can be generated by the dam. However, in modern society, the proportion of hydroelectric power is really slight. There are other various methods of electricity generation, for example, steam power and nuclear power. Considering to geographical conditions in Korea, it is true that the dam is necessary, however, the dam must be constructed only in essential place.
Dam is a human-mad artificial structure that changes flow of stream. The objective of constructing dam is preventing flood or drought and storing water. Thus, when government constructs dam, it is useful for flood or drought prevention. On the other hand, there are some disadvantages constructing dam. First, it could destroy environment because it changes original ecosystem. Second, dam make flooded villages for constructing structure. Last, water could be corrupt because of storing water.
I think dam has more advantages, because flood and drought is not avoidable disaster. So, we have to make the way to minimize hazard of them. However, if government carefully and accurately environments of surroundings when we construct dam, the disadvantages of dam could be avoidable or be minimized.
For human being, dam building has more advantages than disadvantages on a number of areas. The most important reason why dam should be built can be protected natural disaster such as flood, drought. In case of Korea, the annual of precipitation rate, about 70%, is concentrated on summer season. Conversely, on winter season, the amount of rain is too little. That’s why flood and drought happen many times than other countries. People who need water for their living such as farmers and those who are living near river, forest are exposed to these accidents easily. Dam building can block and store water while flood and can use the stored water while drought. It could make water usage useful more than in the past. Also, dam building can be helpful for making electricity. By building dams, it can generate hydroelectric, and the generators at the dam could convert water power into electricity. There are reasons why I think dam should be built.
In my opinion, dam has more advantages than disadvantages.
Basically,It is for storing the water for many reason. For example, farming, industrial use, living. It copes with drought and flood. On the plus side, It create energy which is hydroelectric power. I think dam is efficient way to control and preapre in case of nutural diseasters and lack of energy. As long as It is necessary , It has to be built on appropriate spot.
I think that dam building has some advantages. Firstly, the difference of precipitation between rainy season and drought season is large in Korea. By building dam, water usage can be controlled. In rainy season, dam can prevent water from overflowing. During drought season, stored water in the dam can be useful. Secondly, it is helpful to farming. In the countryside, farming is a major industry. A water usage is important to farming. However, some areas have water access problem. Building dam can provide there areas with water. Finally, hydroelectricity is made by dam building. Most of electricity is made by coal thermal power. However, it caused a great deal of environmental pollution. Construction of dam can reduce pollutions.