Waterway project aims to alleviate the bottleneck caused by the construction of the largest hydroelectric plant in the world
China has begun work on a 77.2 billion yuan ($11.4 billion) project to build a second navigation channel at the Three Gorges Dam, seeking to alleviate a serious bottleneck in the country’s busiest inland waterway.
Construction began on Monday (8.Jun.2026) on a project that includes 2 main components: a new transit channel at the Three Gorges Junction and an expansion of the capacity of the Gezhouba Dam downstream. Designed for fleets of 10,000-ton ships, the project aims to ease congestion on the Yangtze River, a crucial commercial artery. Its estimated initial investment exceeds the 72.7 billion yuan ($10.7 billion) cost projected for the Pinglu Canal, another major waterway project in southern China.
Construction of the new Three Gorges Canal is expected to take about 9 years, while the Gezhouba expansion will take almost 8. Workers are expected to excavate 160 million cubic meters of earth and rock — roughly the volume of 61 Great Pyramids of Giza — and pour more than 10 million cubic meters of concrete.
Navigation has been central to the Three Gorges Dam, the world’s largest hydroelectric project, since its inception. During planning in the 1980s, engineers debated the height of the dam, with some advocating a lower structure. Planners ultimately opted for a 185-meter dam to extend deep-water navigation upriver to Chongqing, eliminating dozens of dangerous rapids and shallow reaches.
The locks, however, became victims of their own success. When the 5-stage lock system was completed in 2007, planners predicted that annual cargo volume would reach its design capacity of 100 million tons by 2030. Instead, rapid economic growth along the Yangtze River pushed volumes beyond that threshold in 2011, nearly two decades ahead of schedule.
Niu Xinqiang, former president of Changjiang Design Group, said cargo volume has been steadily increasing since the lock opened in 2003. Today, more than 70 percent of bulk cargo, 80 percent of containers and 90 percent of foreign trade goods moving through the main Yangtze River depend on the corridor, according to Zhang Chaoran, former chief engineer of .
By 2025, the Three Gorges lock system will have handled 2.24 billion tonnes of cargo over 22 years. But increased traffic has led to persistent congestion.
The Three Gorges Navigation Authority says the lock has operated above capacity for 9 consecutive years. Ships face an average wait of 44 hours to cross the dam, with delays reaching 400 hours, or more than 16 days.
Beijing increasingly views this bottleneck as an obstacle to regional economic integration. Preliminary research on a new transit channel began in 2013, and the project’s feasibility study was approved in 2025. The project was later included as a priority in China’s 15th Five-Year Plan adopted in March.
The new canal, which will be dug into the mountains on the left bank of the existing dam, will include a 5-stage double lock nearly 6,700 meters long. Once in operation, it is expected to increase the annual transit capacity of the Three Gorges Junction to 336 million tonnes.
Downstream, Gezhouba Dam’s capacity will increase to 360 million tonnes following the demolition of an existing lock and the construction of two new single-stage locks.
The Hubei provincial government said the excavation work is separated from the main dam structure by some hills and will not affect power generation or flood control operations.
The project could also bring relief to Chinese sturgeon, a critically endangered species known as the “king of the Yangtze fish.” The construction of the Gezhouba and Three Gorges dams blocked the fish’s migratory route in previous decades, practically stopping their natural reproduction.
Ecological experts had previously called for the removal of a containment wall built by China Three Gorges over the sturgeon’s spawning grounds, but no action to that effect was taken. Provincial authorities hope that once the new canal is completed, vessel traffic through the old locks will drastically decrease, reducing noise and disturbance to spawning areas.
To limit the impact on fish, builders abandoned underwater explosions in favor of mechanical excavation. China Three Gorges Corp. also adjusted its engineering design to avoid sturgeon spawning areas.
Gao Peng, deputy chief engineer of China Three Gorges, said the design change added 2 billion yuan to the total cost.
This report was originally in English by Caixin Global on June 11, 2026. It was translated and republished by Poder360 under mutual content sharing agreement.
