Meanwhile, campaigners at NGO International Rivers are calling for the government to put the brakes on.

The government was already planning to increase hydropower capacity by 50%, from around 200GW at present to 300GW – with the initial plan to meet this target by 2020.

However, Zhang Guobao, director of China’s National Energy Administration, told local media that the deadline has been moved forward to help the country meet its target to reduce the carbon intensity of the economy by around 40-45% by 2020, from 2005 levels.

“I've no idea how realistic it is to suddenly move the target forward by five years,” Patrick McCully, executive director of International Rivers, based in Berkeley, California. “In any case, our view is that this breakneck pace of dam-building is destroying China's rivers and riverine ecosystems and causing massive social disruption, and that the major risks of big hydro projects are not being properly assessed.”

“The country already has half the world’s large dams within its borders,” added Peter Bosshard, the NGO’s policy director. “It will not be able to increase hydropower generation by half within the limits of its laws and regulations, ecosystems and social cohesion.”

“Fisheries and water quality are collapsing in heavily dammed rivers, land is no longer available for large-scale resettlement, and moving dam building upstream to sparsely populated mountain areas would create major seismic risks,” Bosshard said.

China hosts the world's largest hydropower project, the 22.5GW Three Gorges Dam.

Jess McCabe