Research On Freight Demand And Lock Capacity Of The Three Gorges

As a water-control hinge project in the west of China, the Three Gorges strongly affects shipping development in the upriver part of Changjiang as well as economic development of southwest China. After navigation, the Three Gorges Dam operated well and its pass ability enhances fast. At present, the efficiency of the dam has reached a high level and the dam nearly operates at full capacity. However there still are some problems needed to be focused on, such as the large differences between the real run brake time, lock capacity and the indexes designed, and the insufficiency of the lock capacity under some uncommon conditions. These problems reflect the deficiency between the Three Gorges' lock capacity and the demand of shipping.As the Three Gorges Project is completed and the stores water level rises gradually, the condition of the Three Gorges Dam changes unceasingly. In order to rise the efficiency of the dam and solve the imbalance between the Three Gorges' capacity and its shipping demands, the real shipping conditions in different period should be researched, the real lock capacity should be accurately calculated, increasing shipping demands should be forecasted in time, analyzing the deficiency of the Three Gorges Dam shipping capacity in different periods, and taking out the integrated methods to enhance the Three Gorges Dam's lock capacity in short-term and long-term respectively.This paper forecasts the middle-term and long-term demands of the Three Gorges through combining the economic development condition in the Three Gorges Dam area and four mathematic methods, namely, leaner regression analysis, the building-up curve model, the transportation elasticity coefficient and the combination forecast. According to the forecasts, the pass-dam cargo quality would be 76 million tons, 99 million tons, 110 million tons and 130 million tons in 2010, 2015, 2020 and 2030 respectively. This article also set out a new way of confirming the load of one-off pass basing on the analysis of integrated lock capacity in the Three Gorges. It successfully calculates the lock capacity is 62.96 million tons, 80.36 million tons, 87.26 million tons and 92.65 million tons in 2010, 2015, 2020 and 2030 respectively. Through the comparison between the demand of passing dam and lock capacity, it can be summarized that the lock capacity of Three Gorges Dam will meet the demand of passing dam in 2010, a small deficiency will exists in 2015 and there is huge insufficiency from 2020 to 2030. Therefore this article fully researched the countermeasures and suggestions of how to raise the Three Gorges Dam's lock capacity in different period. In short-term, because the lock capacity nearly meets the demand, the Three Gorges Dam's lock capacity could be enhanced by optimizing pass dam flow, shortening the time of passing dam, establishing relative policy and rising the efficiency of loading. As for long-term, owning to the limited dam's lock capacity and increasing of cargo quality, the imbalance is inevitable. Thus the Three Gorges dam's function could be extended though perfecting transshipment policy and developing multi-transportation system. The research in cargo transportation demand and lock capacity has significant effects to enhance the Three Gorges' efficiency and establish golden river passage.