Nowhere to Call Home: A Study of Sanmenxia-Reservoir Resettlement From Henan To Gansu, 1956–1965

In the late 1950s, the creation of a large reservoir for the Sanmenxia hydropower project required the displacement of tens of thousands of households along the Yellow River. Simultaneously, the state commenced a land-reclamation project, sending people from populated areas to the frontiers. Under the supervision of county and provincial authorities, more than 7,000 reservoir inhabitants from Henan were mobilized to migrate to Dunhuang, an oasis surrounded by the Gobi Desert in the northwest. The socialist state's pursuit of irrigation and hydroelectricity benefits not only altered the waterscape of the Yellow River; it also impacted nearby rural communities as well as those a thousand miles away. From the high-modernist perspective, the state-sponsored demographic engineering and the Yellow River engineering seemed to complement each other well. Yet, with the massive flight of resettlers, the state-envisioned integration of reservoir displacement and frontier reclamation ultimately failed.

Ethnic Migration, Embedded Settlement and the Development of Low-Carbon Willingness: A Field Survey on the Reservoir Emigrants of She Minority and the Inhabitants of Immigration Areas in Longyou County, Zhejiang Province

The development of low-carbon willingness is one of the inherent conditions for the construction of low-carbon cities. This paper focuses on a case study of the embedded settlement of She immigrants from Muchen Reservoir (in Zhejiang Province) and inhabitants of immigration areas. Based on a survey sampling of the above-mentioned She emigrants and inhabitants, the author conducts an experimental study, which divides research subjects into four groups: A1 of Han ethnic group settling in single-Han communities in immigration areas; A2 of Han ethnic group settling with She immigrants in immigration areas; B1 of She immigrants settling in single-She communities after migration; B2 of She immigrants settling with Han ethnic group after migration. A1 and B1 are reference groups, while A2 and B2 are experimental groups. The study analyzes and compares the low-carbon awareness of Han ethnic group and She minority in different modes of living (single-ethnic settlement and embedded settlement) in the immigrant area after the reservoir resettlement, so as to identify whether embedded settlement helps foster low-carbon awareness. The results show that Han ethnic group settling with She immigrants consumed less luxuries and is better at applying traditional local knowledge compared with its reference group; meanwhile, She minority settling with Han ethnic group has more low-carbon knowledge and stronger low-carbon willingness. The study proves that when an ethnic minority migrates from a single-ethnicity community to one featuring embedded settlement of different ethnic groups, the communication among them helps to spread and strengthen low-carbon awareness; besides, traditional local knowledge of ethnic minorities contributes to the low-carbon development of the immigration areas.

Research on Problems and Countermeasures for Urbanization of Reservoir Resettlement in Guizhou Province

The reservoir filling arising out of the water conservancy and hydropower engineering development inundated a lot of fertile farmlands and good soils. Especially it was mountainous with scarce land in the southwest area, and the contradiction between man and land was prominent. The soil-based resettlement mode only possessed the textual meaning, rather than the practical operational meaning. It is necessary to adopt the urbanization and industrialization resettlement, so as to enable the resettlement to move out as well as dwell securely and become rich step by step. Through the field research, this paper summarizes the type during the urbanization process of reservoir resettlement in Guizhou Province at the present stage, discovers the existing difficulties and problems in the resettlement, and puts forward the relevant countermeasures and suggestions.

Study on Evaluation Method for Sustainable Development of Reservoir Resettlement Based on Analytic Hierarchy Process

The sustainable development evaluation of reservoir resettlement has great significance to future planning and implementation of water conservancy and hydropower projects. Based on the analysis of the current condition of reservoir resettlement, this paper established a comprehensive evaluation index system for sustainable development of reservoir resettlement, with the consideration of economic, social, cultural and environmental factors. The Analytic Hierarchy Process method is proposed to determine the weight of each index. The case of the Three Gorges reservoir resettlement in Tianchang, Anhui is analyzed, and the feasibility of the proposed method is verified.