When the Three Gorges Dam was proposed in China in the mid-1990s, international groups raised their voices in concern. The construction of the world's largest dam would carry heavy environmental concerns. Millions of people would be displaced.

Environmentalists asked the Chinese government to construct several smaller dams rather than create one super-dam. The complaints were disregarded, and the enormous dam was constructed and completed by 2006. While the Three Gorges Dam held the attention of the world, many large-scale dam projects constructed and led by developed countr ies in the developing world in the late '50s to early '80s were largely ignored. Those dams also carried heavy implications, but have been permitted to let failures happen and disappear into obscurity.

Dam projects were extremely prolific across the world as a development tool during the 20th century. In fact, the two countries that lead the world in dams are the United States and the United Kingdom.

What makes dams so attractive?

Dams are all about water usage and management. Water resources are highly contested because, while water is a necessity of life, it can be easily polluted, people can charge high fees for it, there are sanitation issues and it is susceptible to control at the source. Harnessing the power of water through hydroelectricity also gives incentives to be proactive in the management of water resources.

Hydroelectricity is probably the biggest incentive to dam building.

By building a dam, energy can be generated relatively pollution-free. In addition, dam building allows unpredictable floods to be controlled. The land opened up by damming can be used as fertile farmland, and they are also useful for irrigation. The Tennessee Valley Authority was launched during the New Deal and still provides electricity to 8.5 million customers. Dozens of dams were constructed simultaneously during the height of the TVA, and the dams helped create jobs, provided electricity, improved navigation, controlled floods and regulated resource distribution.

But dams bring enormous challenges along with their advantages. The two largest issues for dams are displacement of local populations and environmental hazards. And the problems are not simply relegated to the developing world: The United States and the United Kingdom also face these challenges.

The locks and dams along the Mississippi were constructed to help an increasingly shallow river remain navigable. However, those locks and dams have placed almost two different types of ecosystems into the river. On one side of the river, where the boats pass, water flows quickly and is fairly deep. The larger fish of the Mississippi stay on this side of the river.

On the side that boats do not travel on, however, the water is shallow and murky, and bottom feeders and lotus beds breed uncontrollably. The dual-riparian ecosystem of the Mississippi has created challenges in an ecosystem that used to be highly integrated. The TVA, over the life of its construction, also managed to displace 15,000 people. This created resistance to the construction projects, but the United States muffled the complaints and pushed ahead with the dams.

Today, developing countries facing the same problems as the United States and United Kingdom dam projects are under much greater scrutiny. Not only was the Three Gorges Dam highly criticized by non-governmental organizations and governments, the Narmada dam in India had construction halted because of environmental concerns. But the problems they face only mirror the challenges faced by the United States and the rest of the developing world decades ago. In fact, many of the dams in developing nations before the 1980s were actually constructed by those nations.

The changing awareness of the general public toward state affairs and environmental degradation is encouraging.

What is even more encouraging is the ability of non-governmental organizations and international agencies holding the power to halt enormous projects, like the Narmada dam, to display an understanding of both the benefits of certain economic projects while reconciling them with the challenges they present.

In an increasingly international world with large, industrial projects, awareness from average folks is critical to hold powerful institutions and governments accountable.

Reach reporter Sandley Chou at opinion@thedaily.washington.edu.